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THE    HOMELANDS   OF  JEWRY 

PERCENTAGES    OF    TOTAL    POPULATION    ARE    INDKAIEI)    l!V    SHAD1NC;S 


Cmirtny  »t  American-]exi:hh  C.ommitlre 


THE  JEW  PAYS 

A  NARRATIVE  OF  THE  CONSEQUENCES  OF 
THE  WAR  TO  THE  JEWS  OF  EASTERN 
EUROPE,  AND  OF  THE  MANNER  IN 
WHICH  AMERICANS  HAVE  AT- 
TEMPTED TO  MEET  THEM 


By  M.  E.  RAVAGE 


New  York    ALFRED  •  A  •  KNOPF   Mcmxix 


COPYRIGHT,  1919,  BY 
ALFRED  A.  KNOPF,  Inc. 


PRINTED    IN    THB    UNITKD    STATES    OT   AMERICA 


THIS  BOOK  IS  OFFERED 
as  a  tribute  to  the  millions  of 
Americans — Jews  and  non- 
Jews — who  have  cheerfully 
given  of  their  plenty  and  of- 
ten submitted  to  sacrifices  in 
order  that  the  unfortunates 
of  distant  lands  might  live. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

I  The  Homelands  of  the  Jew  3 

IT  Jews  and  War  in  Eastern  Europe  14 

III  The  Reliance  of  the  Jew  in  the  New  World  29 

IV  The  Earliest  Response  35 
V  America  to  the  Rescue  45 

VI  Slow  Progress  56 

VII  The  Philanthropy  of  the  Masses  65 

VIII  The  Dramatic  Beginning  75 

IX  The  Conquest  of  the  Country  86 

X  The  Conduct  of  a  Campaign  from  Without  94 

XI  The  Conduct  of  a  Campaign  from  Within  103 

XII  The  Psychology  of  Giving  115 

XIII  The  Share  of  the  Others  122 

XIV  Problems  of  Distribution  134 

XV  Problems  for  To-day  and  To-morrow  145 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

1.  The  Homelands  of  Jewry  (Map)  Frontispiece 

2.  In  the  Wake  of  the  Annies  Facing  page     11 

3.  Dangerous  Enemies  "         "        26 

4.  Campaign  Posters  "        "        98 

5.  In  the  Whirl  of  a  Campaign  "        "       110 

6.  A  Bit  of  Applied  Christianity  "        "      131 


THE  JEW  PAYS 


CHAPTER   I 

THE  HOMELANDS  OF  THE  JEW 

THE  outbreak  of  war  in  August,  1914,  fell 
upon  the  ears  of  America  as  a  tragic  surprise. 
To  the  nations  of  Europe  it  came  as  an  almost  wel- 
come relief  from  a  nightmare  of  suspense.  To 
one  people  alone  the  call  to  arms  was  an  unmiti- 
gated catastrophe.  The  Jews  of  Eastern  Europe, 
in  common  with  the  other  peoples  of  the  continent, 
had  seen  war  lurking  on  the  European  horizon  for 
a  generation  past;  but,  unlike  their  neighbors,  they 
had  beheld  the  thing  in  its  naked  barbarity,  stripped 
of  its  traditional  trappings.  To  the  great  nations 
of  the  West — or  at  least  to  their  governments — a 
European  war  promised  doubtless  to  be  a  day  of 
reckoning  with  a  menacing  rival;  to  the  small  sub- 
jugated or  half-free  countries  lying  east  of  Ger- 
many, between  the  Baltic  and  the  Mediterranean, 
such  a  war  might  well  hold  out  the  hope  of  ma- 
terializing long-cherished  national  aspirations.  To 
both  alike  a  struggle  in  the  open  was  in  any  event 
to  be  preferred  to  the  threat  and  the  tension  of  half 


4  THE    JEW   PAYS 

a  century  of  more  or  less  secret  whettings  of  the 
sword. 

Not  that  the  common  man  and  woman  in  every 
country  of  Europe  was  unmoved  by  the  prospect 
of  the  blood  and  terror  made  familiar  to  them  by 
the  experiences  of  past  struggles;  nevertheless  for 
the  strong  as  well  as  for  the  weak,  there  was  a  com- 
plement and  at  least  a  partial  reward  in  the  high 
enthusiasm  of  belligerency  and  the  high  hopes  for 
a  brighter  and  a  more  stable  future.  The  Pole,  for 
instance,  while  thoroughly  aware  of  his  share  of 
the  pathetic  cost  of  a  great  war,  might  yet  be  glad- 
dened by  the  prospect  of  his  country's  unity  and 
independent  statehood  resulting  from  the  general 
ruin.  The  Vlach,  projecting  his  vision  beyond  the 
gloom  around  him,  might  not  unreasonably  be 
stirred  by  the  hope  of  reunion  with  independent 
Rumania.  And  each  of  Austria's  subject  peoples 
could  welcome  the  bitter  necessity  of  shedding  its 
blood  for  the  immediate  benefit  of  its  ancient  en- 
emy and  oppressor,  by  reflecting  on  the  inevitable 
collapse  of  the  polyglot  empire  in  a  world  war. 
France,  in  the  face  of  possible  annihilation,  might 
take  comfort  in  the  gratification  of  her  sentiment  of 
revenge  and  find  relief  in  at  last  coming  to  grips 
with  a  brutal  and  intolerable  foe.  While  England, 
not  reckoning  the  price  and  not  heeding  it,  might 
well  hold  any  cost  trifling  in  exchange  for  the 


HOMELANDS  5 

freedom  of  the  seas.  Only  the  Jew  of  East-Europe, 
unblinded  by  any  possible  advantage  to  himself  in 
the  outcome,  must  view  the  lowering  calamity  with 
impartial  judgment  and  set  it  down,  both  for  him- 
self and  for  the  world,  as  all  but  a  total  loss. 

There  is  not  in  all  this  the  slightest  implication 
of  superior  insight  on  the  part  of  the  Jew,  nor  of 
inferior  patriotism.  The  Jew  of  Russia  and  Aus- 
tria and  the  Balkans  is,  of  course,  gifted  with 
no  more  statesmanlike  vision  than  his  fellows. 
Neither  does  he  lack,  by  comparison  with  them,  in 
devotion  to  his  hearth  and  to  the  gods  of  his  house- 
hold. Even  in  lands  where  the  Jew  is  deprived  of 
the  rights  accorded  to  other  portions  of  the  popula- 
tion, there  is  no  human  creature  more  devotedly  at- 
tached to  home  and  family  than  he.  And  it  is  this 
affectionate  attachment  which  is,  after  all,  the  very 
heart  and  meaning  of  patriotism.  The  European 
Jew's  sober  valuation  of  international  warfare  is 
only  a  logical  outgrowth  of  his  place  in  history.  It 
inevitably  proceeds  from  his  unique  position  in 
the  European  polity.  Whatever  good  or  ill  war 
may  bring  to  others,  to  him  every  war  is  a  chapter 
in  extermination.  Bound  by  ties  which  transcend 
national  frontiers,  all  battle  is,  as  far  as  the  Jew 
goes,  a  fratricidal  irrelevance.  Whether  or  not 
there  is  in  practice  Christian  brotherhood  on  this 
earth,  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  very  real  and. 


6  THE    JEW   PAYS 

to  the  war-makers,  the  very  annoying  existence  of 
Jewish  brotherhood.  The  status  of  Jewry  in  the 
world  is,  in  this  respect,  exactly  opposite  the  status 
of  America.  Both  are  international  peoples.  But 
while  the  American  commonwealth  partakes  of  the 
blood  and  bone  of  all  peoples,  the  remnant  of  Israel 
is  scattered  among  all  the  nations  of  the  earth  and 
its  blood  and  bone  is  part  and  parcel  of  them  all. 
It  matters  not  what  nation  may  battle  against  what 
other,  every  struggle  in  the  Western  world  is  a 
battle  between  Jew  and  Jew.  Such  is  the  penalty 
that  Jewry  pays  for  being  the  one  dispersed  people 
among  the  nations  and  for  persistently  carrying  on 
its  mission  through  the  flux  and  instability  of  his- 
tory. It  is  owing  to  the  fact  that  the  Jew  retains 
his  name,  but  not  his  local  habitation,  that  he  is, 
or  should  be,  the  single  missionary  of  peace  in  a 
world  that  clings,  despite  its  infamy  and  absurdity, 
to  the  military  tradition  of  a  past  and  utterly 
shelved  age. 

How  quickly  this  Jewish  premonition  was  more 
than  vindicated  is  well  known  to  all  those  who  are 
in  the  slightest  degree  familiar  with  the  records 
of  the  Eastern  war  zone.  For  it  is  to  be  under- 
stood that  when  I  speak  of  the  Jews  in  the  world 
I  am  thinking  principally  of  the  unemancipated 
millions  who  inhabit  that  strip  of  territory  which 
is  the  border-line  between  Western  and  Eastern 


HOMELANDS  7 

Europe,  and,  indeed,  between  the  Occident  and 
the  Orient.  Here,  on  a  narrow  band  of  the  earth's 
surface,  comprising  a  fraction  of  the  fallen  Aus- 
trian and  Russian  empires,  and  including  the  ma- 
jor part  of  the  Balkan  Peninsula,  are  concentrated 
not  only  the  largest  number  of  Jewish  folk,  but 
also  that  distinctive  tradition  and  point  of  view  and 
manner  of  life  which  is  the  recognized  hall-mark 
of  Jewry.  It  is  here  preeminently  that  the  Jew  is 
a  Jew  by  every  test  and  definition.  It  is  here  that 
for  a  thousand  years  or  more  the  major  fraction  of 
the  Remnant  has  survived  (in  the  body  as  well  as 
in  the  spirit)  and  has  evolved  a  culture  and  a  civili- 
zation of  its  own.  Jews  in  the  Western  World 
generally,  and  in  the  Western  Hemisphere  in  par- 
ticular, have,  to  be  sure,  made  precious  and  con- 
siderable contributions  to  the  world's  life  and 
thought  which  not  even  their  most  inveterate  en- 
emies can  gainsay,  but  these  contributions  are  gen- 
erally the  gifts  of  individuals  to  the  country  and 
the  polity  of  which  they  are,  in  a  larger  or  lesser 
sense,  a  part.  Heine  was  as  much  a  German  poet 
as  Koerner  or  Goethe.  Disraeli  was  an  English 
peer  and  as  much  a  British  statesman  as  Gladstone 
or  Palraerston.  Spinoza  was  no  more  a  tribal 
philosopher  than  was  Spencer  or  Kant.  That  all 
these  men  happen  to  have  been  Jews  is  of  no  more 
significance  than  the  fact  that  Mr.  Gompers  or  Mr, 


8  THE    JEW    PAYS 

Adolph  Ochs  or  Mr.  Leon  Trotzky  are  Jews — of  no 
more  significance  than  the  fact  that  Mr.  Frank  P. 
Walsh  is  a  Catholic  or  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw  a 
Protestant.  In  the  Western  World  a  man  may  call 
himself  a  Jew  for  any  one  variety  of  reasons:  it  is 
only  in  Eastern  Europe — in  Poland,  in  Galicia,  in 
Lithuania,  and  the  rest — that  a  Jew  is  part  of  a 
people  and  a  civilization. 

It  is  in  Eastern  Europe,  as  I  say,  that  the  Jew  is 
really  a  Jew  in  the  genuine  sense  of  the  word. 
Here,  as  much  as  in  the  Palestine  of  the  prophets 
and  the  kings  and  the  early  Christians,  contribu- 
tions to  the  common  progress  of  mankind  when 
made  by  Jews  become  first  the  inheritance  of  Jewry 
and  are  only  indirectly,  through  the  channel  of  the 
Jewish  people,  handed  on  to  the  rest  of  the  world. 
Here  a  Jew,  if  he  is  a  poet,  will  write  in  a  tongue 
which  Jews  alone  can  understand,  and  draw  his 
matter  and  his  inspiration  from  sources  distinctly 
Jewish.  Here  the  thinker  of  Jewish  parentage  will 
be  a  Jewish  thinker,  and  here  statesmen  like  Ahad 
Ha'am  and  Mr.  Sokolow,  who  are  of  Jewish  stock, 
are  Jewish  statesmen.  In  the  region  stretching 
from  Finland  on  the  north  to  Jugo-Slavia  on  the 
south,  the  religion  of  the  elder  Jews  is  still  quite 
recognizably  the  Jewish  religion.  On  this  strip 
of  European  territory  the  Jewish  Exile,  with  all  its 
distinctive  character  of  discrimination  tempered  by 


HOMELANDS  9 

massacre,  still  follows  the  traditional  models,  so 
that  no  one  can  mistake  it  for  something  else.  And 
here  in  this  distant  corridor,  between  East  and 
West,  the  seemingly  shattered  Jewish  spirit  still 
knows  at  times  how  to  flame  into  revolt  after  the 
fashion  of  the  prophets  and  the  founder  of  Chris- 
tianity. 

It  was  this  distinctive  civilization,  this  Jewish 
common  life,  primarily,  that  Jews  with  vision  the 
world  over,  saw  threatened  with  destruction  in  the 
last  days  of  July,  1914.  And  the  threat  lay  in  the 
geographic  and  social  and  historical  position  of 
Jewry  in  the  Christian  system.  Jewry  was,  to  be- 
gin with,  a  buffer  between  the  nations  of  Central 
Europe  and  the  Russian  Empire.  It  was  lying  om- 
inously and  helplessly  in  the  path  of  huge  armies 
rushing  for  each  other's  throat;  which  in  itself 
was  a  sufficient  promise  of  extinction.  But  there 
were  elements  in  its  position,  besides,  which  ex- 
posed it  to  destruction  vastly  surer  and  more  effec- 
tive than  that  which  threatened  to  overcome  any 
other  buffer  people  in  Europe  or  Asia.  For  Jewry 
in  Poland  and  in  Rumania  rested  not  only  like  a 
grain  between  the  millstones  of  neighboring  and 
quarreling  states;  it  was  a  buffer  between  its  indi- 
vidual next  door  neighbors  as  well.  Jewry  was 
threatened  with  sudden  death  not  merely  from  with- 
out, but  with  particular  suddenness  and  complete- 


10  THEJEWPAYS 

ness  from  within.  The  Jewish  community  in  East- 
em  Europe  was  a  tenant  community.  It  had  never 
owned  its  home.  It  was,  in  the  best  and  quietest 
times  even,  a  stranger  in  its  own  back  yard;  and 
its  bitterest  and  most  terrifying  danger  lay  in  the 
direction,  not  so  much  of  the  invading  enemy,  as 
of  the  foe  at  home.  The  Prussian,  to  be  sure, 
might  well  be  relied  on  to  work  havoc  in  his  prog- 
ress, but  as  an  invader  he  might  at  least  be  expected 
to  make  it  general  and  to  play  no  favorites.  His 
vengeance  could  with  some  degree  of  certainty  be 
trusted  to  fall  alike  upon  alien  Jew  and  loyal  Mus- 
covite or  Pole.  What  the  loyal  Muscovite  and 
Pole,  on  the  other  hand,  might  take  a  fancy  to  do 
while  his  armed  brethren  were  busy  repelling  the 
invader,  was  at  once  more  mysterious  and  more 
certain.  It  was  the  more  certain  because  these 
gentry  had  been  gracious  enough  to  exhibit  fair 
samples  of  what  they  were  capable  of  in  peace 
times.  And  the  mystery  lay  in  just  how  far  they 
could  improve  upon  previous  effort  at  a  time  when 
civilized  attention  was  centered  upon  other  things. 
The  suspense  was  mercifully  not  long  drawn  out. 
The  moment  that  the  great  armies  were  let  loose. 
East  European  Jewry  was  caught  in  the  hurricane, 
and  there  began  that  grinding  process  which  has 
persisted  for  five  years  and  which  will  continue 
to  the  end  unless  the  civilized  conscience  of  man- 


HOMELANDS  11 

kind  shall  step  in  and  bring  that  greater  and  more 
basic  relief  to  supplement  the  heroic  single-handed 
effort  of  the  Jews  of  America  at  temporary  salvage, 
which  is  the  theme  of  this  book.  The  pathetic  tale 
of  the  woes  of  invaded  Belgium  becomes  by  com- 
parison almost  cheerful  reading.  Indeed,  no  peo- 
ple in  history  was  ever  overwhelmed  by  a  disaster 
that  in  any  degree  could  measure  up  to  this  one. 
For  Belgium  was  an  organized  State,  and  when  it 
was  forced  into  the  war  it  instantly  became  the  ally 
of  great  powers  and  enlisted  the  sympathy  of  the 
entire  world.  Belgium  was  a  country  with  a  gov- 
ernment of  its  own,  it  had  a  place  in  the  political 
and  economic  scheme  of  the  world,  which  insured 
it  moral  and  material  support  from  other  nations. 
Its  government  could  borrow,  as  it  did,  numberless 
millions  to  feed  its  people,  against  its  own  national 
resources  and  prospects.  It  could  take  the  fortunes 
of  war  with  some  degree  of  calm  and  hope.  Faced 
with  a  powerful  enemy  on  the  one  side,  it  could 
at  least  rely  on  its  powerful  friends  on  the  other. 
In  time  the  tide  might  turn,  the  invader  be  thrust 
out,  and  the  liberator  be  welcomed.  Jewry  could 
take  no  comfort  in  any  such  hopes  in  the  hour  of 
its  trial.  Enlisted  though  it  was  in  the  service  of 
both  belligerents,  it  could  expect  no  protection 
from  either.  What  it  might  await  and  what  it  ac- 
tually got  was  the  charge  of  disloyalty  to  both.     I, 


12  THEJEWPAYS 

for  one,  should  esteem  the  Jewish  spirit  the  less 
if  the  charge  should  prove  to  be  untrue ;  but  whether 
the  Jews  of  Poland  and  Russia  and  Rumania  were 
pro-German  or  pro-Russian  during  the  war  does 
not  in  the  slightest  alter  their  case.  German  and 
Russian  treated  them  with  equal  impartiality  as 
their  immediate  and  principal  victims.  It  seems 
as  if  the  governments  and  the  general  staffs  of  both 
countries  had  tacitly  agreed  that  whatever  might 
be  the  outcome  of  the  major  objects  of  the  war,  it 
should  at  least  be  made  certain  that  one  aim  shall 
not  remain  unachieved,  namely:  the  extermination 
of  the  Jews  of  Eastern  Europe. 

For  it  was  not  the  mere  routine  terrors,  which 
the  civil  population  of  a  border  country  ought  to 
expect,  that  these  people  were  subjected  to.  From 
all  accounts  and  all  witnesses  the  conviction  grows 
irresistibly  that  their  fate  was  a  matter  of  deliber- 
ate and  diabolical  conspiracy.  As  the  armies  at- 
tacked and  counter-attacked  and  rolled  each  other 
backward  and  forward,  the  non-combatant  popu- 
lation endured  all  the  usual  misery  that  belongs  to 
warfare,  and  the  Jew  got  of  this  no  more  than  his 
share.  What  fell  to  his  lot  behind  the  lines  is 
another  story.  And  it  is  by  the  side  of  this  story 
that  the  case  of  Belgium  fades  into  insignificance. 
Wholesale  deportations  of  women  and  old  men  and 
children — people  of  no  earthly  industrial  value; 


HOMELANDS  13 

the  looting  of  homes  and  shops  without  even  the 
apology  of  calling  it  punitive  indemnity;  forced 
evacuations  of  whole  towns  without  notice  and  in 
the  middle  of  the  night;  freight  cars  filled  with  the 
sick  and  helpless,  left  on  the  railway  tracks  in  the 
wilderness  until  their  occupants  succumbed  from 
hunger  or  suffocation — such  was  the  order  of  the 
day  for  the  Jews  of  the  Russian  Empire  regardless 
of  which  side  was  in  control ;  while  the  vast  masses 
who  could  not  be  either  massacred  or  exiled  re- 
mained in  their  places  to  survive  or  perish,  as  their 
stars  might  decree. 

This  was  the  state  of  things  in  the  homelands  of 
the  world's  Jewry  in  1914,  when  the  appeal  and  the 
cry  went  forth  to  America  for  help. 

It  was  a  cry  and  an  appeal  that  was  to  be  heeded 
before  it  was  issued. 


CHAPTER   II 

JEWS  AND  WAR  IN  EASTERN  EUROPE 

THE  terrible  catastrophe  which  overwhelmed 
the  great  Jewish  community  in  Eastern 
Europe  had  its  roots  in  something  much  deeper  and 
more  lasting  than  the  great  war.  The  war  merely 
served  to  increase  the  tragic  burden.  For  one 
thing,  it  completed  the  isolation  of  the  Jewish  peo- 
ple by  destroying  communication  with  its  sister 
communities  in  Western  Europe  and  America.  It 
diverted  the  attention  of  the  world  to  more  pressing 
problems  and  thus  left  Jewry  to  the  mercies  of  its 
ancient  enemies.  The  world  war  was  in  effect  no 
more  than  the  signal  for  bringing  the  age-long 
guerrilla  between  Jew  and  non-Jew  in  that  quarter 
of  the  world  into  the  open.  The  tinder  had  been 
there  for  centuries,  everlastingly  smoking,  upon 
occasion  emitting  tongues  of  flame,  but  for  the 
most  part,  smoldering  covertly.  It  needed  but  a 
general  conflagration  in  neighboring  and  distant 
parts  to  set  off"  this  highly  inflammable  magazine. 
In  brief,  the  frightful  and  consuming  misery  of  the 

14 


JEWS    AND    WAR  15 

Jews  in  Russia  and  Poland  was  a  product  directly 
of  anti-Semitism  and  only  incidentally  of  war. 
The  war  was  not  its  cause;  it  was  only  its  occasion 
and  excuse. 

For  a  moment  it  looked  indeed  as  if  the  Jews  of 
Russia  at  least  were  going  to  bear  no  more  of  the 
burden  than  the  other  groups  of  the  population. 
The  Czar's  proclamation,  issued  shortly  after  the 
declaration  of  hostilities,  promised  to  wipe  out  the 
old  discriminations.  It  really  looked  as  if,  in  the 
midst  of  a  great  national  struggle,  even  the  infa- 
mous despotism  of  the  Romanoffs  would  become 
sufficiently  enlightened  to  see  the  wisdom  of  uniting 
the  multitude  of  races  and  peoples,  whom  it  had 
divided  in  order  to  dominate,  purely  as  a  measure 
of  attaining  their  support.  The  promise,  to  be 
sure,  was  of  no  great  merit  coming  from  such  a 
source.  The  word  of  the  autocracy  had  too  often 
in  the  past  been  plighted  only  to  be  broken. 
Nevertheless,  Jewry  heeded  it  hopefully,  thinking 
that  perhaps  for  once  the  leopard  might  really 
change  his  spots.  The  Jews  were  to  be  swiftly  dis- 
illusioned. 

The  ground  began  to  be  prepared  in  the  very  first 
days  of  the  war  by  methodically  discrediting  the 
Jewish  population  in  the  eyes  of  its  neighbors.  It 
was  a  process  that  proved  all  too  easy.  The  Jews 
spoke  a  language  closely  akin  to  German.     There- 


16  THEJEWPAYS 

fore  it  was  logical  that  they  should  be  sympathetic 
to  Germany.  Furthermore,  the  Jews  were  an 
"alien"  people  who  had  migrated  centuries  before 
into  Poland  and  Lithuania  from  certain  German 
provinces.  Some  of  their  fellows  still  remained 
in  the  German  Empire  and  constituted  a  no  insig- 
nificant part  of  the  German  armies.  Therefore  it 
was  to  be  expected  that  Jewish  soldiers  of  Russia 
would  be  in  constant  and  fraternal  communication 
with  their  kinsfolk  among  the  enemy.  The  very 
infamy  of  the  autocracy  in  its  past  dealings  with 
the  Jewish  population  was  seized  upon  at  once  as 
evidence  and  as  partial  justification  for  the 
trumped-up  charges.  As  a  member  of  the  Con- 
stitutional Democratic  Party  frankly  confessed  in 
the  Duma  in  a  different  connection,  "The  Jews 
have  suffered  such  cruel  persecutions  in  Russia 
that  they  might  well  be  excused  even  if  the  spy 
stories  were  found  to  be  true."  No  resource  was 
too  base  or  too  fantastic  to  be  used  against  this 
helpless  people. 

And  so  the  ball  was  rapidly  and  systematically 
set  rolling.  First  it  was  a  series  of  spy  stories  de- 
signed to  injure  selected  individuals  and  indirectly 
to  cast  reflection  upon  the  loyalty  of  the  mass. 
For  the  most  part  these  inventions  were  concocted 
and  circulated  in  Poland,  as  might  naturally  be 
expected,  both  in  consequence  of  the  greater  in- 


JEWS    AND    WAR  17 

tensity  of  anti-Jewish  feeling  in  Poland  and  because 
of  the  fact  tliat  the  war  in  its  earlier  phases  was 
fought  in  Polish  territory.^ 

The  circulators  of  these  damaging  charges  were 
not  given  to  fastidious  discriminations.  The  Jew 
was  branded  as  disloyal  now  to  the  Austro-Ger- 
man,  now  to  the  Russian  cause,  depending  only  on 
which  belligerent  happened  for  the  moment  to  be 
in  power.  It  was  of  little  consequence  that  the 
charges  were  invariably  proven  to  be  groundless. 
By  the  time  investigation  had  been  completed  the 
effects  of  the  indictment  had  traveled  too  far  to  be 
recaptured,  and  the  intended  injury  was  accom- 
plished beyond  recall.  How  many  deaths  of  in- 
nocent people  resulted  from  these  accusations  one 
can  only  faintly  imagine.  In  the  town  of  Zamosti 
near  the  Hungarian  frontier  five  Jewish  men  were 
hanged  by  the  Russian  authorities  without  trial,  in 
September,  1914,  although  seven  others  who  had 
been  charged  with  the  same  offense  of  having  given 
aid  to  the  Austrian  enemy  during  his  temporary 
occupation  of  the  town  were  subsequently  acquit- 
ted. At  Lemberg  about  the  same  time  nearly 
seventy  Jews  were  subjected  to  severe  bodily  in- 

1  For  material  in  the  remainder  of  this  chapter  I  am  deeply  in- 
debted to  the  excellent  material  collected  in  a  little  volume  en- 
titled "The  Jews  in  the  Eastern  War  Zone,"  published  in  1916 
by  the  American  Jewish  Committee;  to  which  I  would  refer  the 
reader  for  further  details. 


18  THE    JEW    PAYS 

jury  in  consequence  of  accusations  made  against 
them  and  a  large  number  of  their  fellows  of  having 
fired  upon  Russian  troops.  They  were  in  the  long 
run,  after  due  investigation,  cleared  of  all  guilt,  but 
the  frightful  damage  inflicted  upon  them  had  in 
the  meantime  been  done  and  could  not  well  be  re- 
paired. The  Jews  of  whole  towns — Kieltse,  Ra- 
dom,  Mariampol,  and  many  others — were  sub- 
jected to  endless  indignities  and  downright  physi- 
cal suff'ering  only  to  be  declared  innocent  in  the 
sequel.  Perhaps  the  fiercest  instance  of  the  rav- 
ages of  this  spy  mania  and  insane  hatred  of  a  whole 
people  is  the  case  of  the  Jews  of  Jusefow,  nearly  all 
of  whom  were  ruinously  maltreated  and  at  least 
fourscore  of  whom  were  actually  murdered  on  the 
never  proven  charge  that  they  had  poisoned  the 
wells  of  the  district.  Sometimes,  though  all  too 
infrequently,  the  victims  of  this  wholesale  plotting 
were  rescued  at  the  last  moment  from  the  clutches 
of  their  slanderers.  Once  it  was  a  Russian  priest; 
another  time  it  was  a  Polish  officer;  then  again 
military  tribunals  became  the  instruments  of  merci- 
ful justice  appearing  in  the  nick  of  time  to 
present  the  redeeming  evidence.  But  in  the  ma- 
jority of  cases  no  such  fortunate  accident  inter- 
vened on  behalf  of  the  proscribed. 

Affairs  came  to  such  a  pass  that  even  the  most 
reactionary  elements  in  Russia  awoke  to  the  danger 


JEWS    AND    WAR  19 

of  this  unheard-of  procedure.  Inclined  as  the 
average  member  of  the  ruling  class  might  be  to 
curry  favor  with  the  Polish  population  during  the 
war,  it  became  evident  even  to  them  that  this  con- 
stant repetition  of  unfounded  charges,  with  all  their 
consequences  of  execution,  plunder  and  deepening 
animosity,  was  threatening  to  disintegrate  the 
morale  of  the  civil  population  and  to  create  a  spirit 
behind  the  lines  which  would  inevitably  undermine 
the  effectiveness  of  the  armed  forces  of  the  coun- 
try. Wherefore  it  should  not  be  surprising  that  in 
many  a  controversy  between  Jews  and  Poles,  the 
Russians,  many  of  them  of  long  anti-Semitic  pres- 
tige, were  found  taking  sides  with  the  Jews.  The 
very  leader  of  the  anti-Semitic  party  of  Russia,  re- 
turning from  Poland  early  in  1915,  was  constrained 
to  admit  that  he  had  seen  "nothing  bad  on  the  part 
of  the  Jews  although  the  Poles  made  up  all  sorts 
of  accusations  against  them."  "In  these  Polish 
reports,"  according  to  an  account  of  his  remarks 
in  the  Russian  newspaper  Rasviet,  of  April  26th, 
1915,  "you  feel  prejudice,  vindictiveness,  hatred, 
nothing  else.  The  Jews  are  loyal  and  brave  and 
it  is  most  inadvisable  to  pursue  a  policy  which 
might  convert  six  million  subjects  into  enemies." 

Unhappily  this  sanity  came  somewhat  tardily  to 
the  traditional  bureaucratic  and  military  mental- 
ity of  the  old  regime,  and  even  then  was  somewhat 


20  THEJEWPAYS 

sporadic  and  capricious  in  its  visitations.  The 
lifelong  custom  and  usage  of  an  entire  oligarchy- 
swaddled  and  nursed  in  traditional  practices  can- 
not be  changed  by  sudden  conversion.  The  Jew 
had  by  long  habit  become  entirely  too  convenient 
a  scapegoat  to  be  dispensed  with  in  these  strenuous 
times.  For  generations  Russian  officialdom,  from 
the  Czar  down,  had  been  trained  to  resort  to  race 
hatred  as  a  way  out  of  administrative  difficulties 
consequent  upon  its  own  congenital  imbecility. 
From  time  immemorial  the  Jew  in  Russia  had  been 
the  safety  valve  of  the  inefficient  despotism. 
Whenever  the  peasant  or  the  town  laborer  showed 
symptoms  of  restlessness  that  threatened  to  become 
a  danger  to  authority,  officialdom  had  always 
known,  as  by  a  kind  of  instinct,  how  to  deflect  the 
popular  sentiment  in  the  direction  of  the  Jew. 
Now  the  autocracy  had  once  more  boggled  its  job. 
The  Russian  armies  were  experiencing  defeat  after 
defeat  in  their  combat  with  the  vastly  superior  au- 
tocracies of  Germany  and  Austria.  It  looked  as 
if  the  whole  immense  military  power  of  the  empire 
would  be  crumpled  up  under  the  pressure  of  the 
intelligent  enemy.  Therefore  the  feeble-minded 
command,  seeking  an  avenue  of  escape  from  the 
wrath  of  the  people  whom  it  had  betrayed,  fell 
back  quite  naturally  on  its  ancient  and  well-tried 
instrument;  and  from  this  day  on  until  its  timely 


JEWSANDWAR  21 

end,  at  the  hands  of  the  revolution,  one  finds  the 
constituted  authority  of  the  country  itself  engaged 
in  spreading  suspicion  within  the  army  and  among 
the  people. 

It  may  seem  incredible,  but  the  records  leave  no 
doubt  of  the  actual  issuance  of  military  orders  call- 
ing upon  the  army  and  the  civil  authorities  to  take 
drastic  measures  against  alleged  Jewish  treachery. 
It  became  a  common  daily  occurrence  for  the  Rus- 
sian forces  upon  occupying  a  town  to  take  hostages 
among  the  Jews  and  to  threaten  them  with  execu- 
tion "in  case  of  necessity."  Jewish  homes  and 
shops  were  regularly  searched  for  arms  and  in- 
struments of  communication.  The  use  of  the  Yid- 
dish language  was  prohibited.  People  who  had 
for  centuries  been  accustomed  to  no  other  speech 
were  suddenly  forbidden  to  employ  that  medium 
either  publicly  or  privately.  Jewish  theaters  and 
the  entire  Yiddish  press  were,  as  a  matter  of  course 
and  routine,  suppressed.  A  deputy  in  the  Duma 
furnished  to  that  body,  without  contradiction,  the 
following  long  list  of  discriminations  perpetrated 
by  the  official  censorship  alone  against  the  Jews. 

1.  It  systematically  expunged  or  mutilated  the 
names  of  Jews  to  whom  the  cross  of  St.  George  had 
been  awarded. 

2.  When  the  Mayor  of  Petrograd  congratulated 
the  Jewish  community  upon  the  heroic  conduct  of 


22  THE    JEW    PAYS 

a  lad  of  13,  named  Kaufman,  the  censor  suppressed 
tlie  fact  that  Kaufman  was  a  Jew,  and  that  the 
community  referred  to  was  the  Jewish  community. 

3.  Stories  in  the  Russian  press  of  the  valor  of 
Jews  in  the  French  armies  are  either  suppressed 
or  the  Jewish  names  cut  out. 

4.  A  news  item  referring  to  the  fact  that  Gen- 
eral Semenov,  whom  Jewish  soldiers  had  saved 
from  capture  by  the  Germans,  was  treating  Jews 
kindly,  was  suppressed  by  the  censor. 

5.  Letters  of  regimental  commanders  to  the  par- 
ents of  Jewish  hussars  congratulating  them  on  the 
valor  of  their  sons,  or  notifying  them  of  medals  of 
honor  bestowed  upon  them,  were  suppressed  by 
the  censor. 

6.  The  military  censorship  also  suppressed  news 
of  an  absolutely  non-military  nature,  whenever  it 
might  in  any  manner  have  been  construed  as  friendly 
to  Jews.  Thus,  a  news  item  referring  to  the  non- 
sectarian  activities  of  the  National  Relief  Com- 
mittee, headed  by  the  Princess  Tatyana,  daughter 
of  the  Czar,  was  suppressed.  A  news  item  regard- 
ing the  disapproval  of  the  Council  of  Ministers  of 
the  policy  of  expelling  Jews  en  masse  and  of  whole- 
sale charges  of  treachery  was  also  suppressed. 

7.  Even  the  official  declaration  of  Count  Bo- 
brinski,  Military  Governor  of  Galicia,  referring  to 


JEWS    AND    WAR  23 

the  correctness  of  the  conduct  of  the  Jews  of  Gali- 
cia,  was  suppressed. 

8.  But — outrageously  false  items  published  in 
the  notoriously  anti-Semitic  papers  were  generally 
passed  by  the  censor  without  hesitation.  The  No- 
voe  Vremya,  the  Russkoe  Znamya,  and  other  anti- 
Semitic  organs,  systematically  published  reports 
of  wholesale  Jewish  desertions,  treachery,  spying, 
etc.,  without  at  any  time  producing  an  iota  of  evi- 
dence. Thus,  Russkoe  Znamya  declared  that  the 
loyalty  of  not  a  single  Jewish  soldier  could  be  de- 
pended upon.  The  Novoe  Vremya  declared  that 
the  Jews  were  without  exception  embittered  enemies 
of  the  Russian  army,  and  that  during  the  Japanese 
war  18,000  out  of  27,000  soldiers  voluntarily  sur- 
rendered as  prisoners  to  the  Japanese.  Stories 
without  name,  date  or  place  to  the  effect  that  small 
Polish  boys  warned  the  Russian  soldiers  to  take 
nothing  from  Jews  because  everything  they  would 
furnish  was  poisoned  were  passed  by  the  censor, 
and  made  much  of  by  the  press.  The  notorious 
Kuzhi  canard  was  not  only  passed  by  the  censor 
and  printed  in  the  official  and  semi-official  press  of 
Russia,  but  the  censors  even  hinted,  to  that  section 
of  the  press  which  hesitated  to  publish  a  tale  so 
manifestly  absurd,  that  future  relations  with  the 
censorship  might  be  imperiled  if  the  story  were 


24  THE    JEW    PAYS 

not  given  proper  publicity.  Editors  received  a 
continuous  stream  of  circulars  forbidding  them  to 
touch  upon  questions  which  had  absolutely  no  re- 
lation to  the  war. 

9.  When  the  great  writers  and  publicists  of 
Russia  decided  that  it  would  be  desirable,  for  the 
honor  of  Russia,  to  speak  a  good  word  for  the 
Jews  and  thereby  indirectly  deprecate  before  the 
world  the  merciless  governmental  policy,  the 
pamphlet  containing  their  symposium  was  sup- 
pressed by  the  military  censor.  Even  the  prelim- 
inary letter  of  inquiry  sent  out  by  these  eminent 
Russians,  soliciting  information  as  to  the  partici- 
pation of  Jews  in  the  war,  was  suppressed.  The 
Jewish  weekly,  the  Novy  Voskhod,  was  fined  2,000 
roubles  and  ultimately  suppressed  because  of  the 
publication  of  this  letter.^ 

The  results  of  this  policy  of  suspicion  and  sup- 
pression might  readily  have  been  foreseen.  The 
dark  forces  of  race  animosity  thus  supported  by 
official  encouragement  and  cooperation  grew  bolder 
from  day  to  day  and  continually  multiplied  their 
activities.  Thy  spy  mania,  never  quite  extin- 
guished, broke  forth  with  greater  venom  and  in- 
tensity than  ever.  Atrocities  upon  the  Jewish  in- 
habitants, hitherto  of  a  sporadic  and  local  char- 
acter, assumed  the  shape  of  an  organized  nation- 

1  Op.  cit.,  pp.  57-60. 


JEWS    AND    WAR  25 

wide  policy.  Where  there  had  formerly  been  cas- 
ual expulsions  of  suspected  individuals  there  was 
now  a  wholesale  and  standing  order  for  the  re- 
moval of  the  entire  Jewish  masses  from  the  regions 
affected  by  the  fighting,  which  might  at  any  moment 
be  executed  without  notice.  The  sudden  enforced 
migrations  to  which  reference  was  made  in  the  last 
chapter  were  among  the  first  fruits  of  this  enlight- 
ened governmental  attitude  toward  a  portion  of  its 
constituency.  Whole  towns,  particularly  of  the 
smaller  kind,  were  cleared  over  night  of  their  Jew- 
ish inhabitants  under  the  now  familiar  pretext  of 
military  necessity.  For  a  time  it  looked  as  if  the 
long-desired  expatriation  of  Polish  and  Lithuanian 
Jewry  would  be  accomplished  as  one  of  the  perma- 
nent achievements  of  a  glorious  world  war.  But 
at  this  moment  the  threatened  disaster  to  the  Rus- 
sian armies  occurred  and  Poland  and  Lithuania 
were  overrun  by  the  German  invader. 

Imagination  can  well  portray  the  scenes  incident 
upon  these  evacuations.  But  there  happens  to  ex- 
ist the  most  unquestionable  sort  of  evidence  which 
may  at  once  assist  as  well  as  check  the  vagaries  of 
the  fancy.  In  a  speech  before  the  Duma  the 
Deputy  Dzubinsky,  himself  a  non-Jew,  offered  this 
testimony: 

"As  a  representative  of  our  Fifth  Siberian  Division  I 
was  myself  on  the  scene  and  can  testify  with  what  in- 


26  THEJEWPAYS 

credible  cruelty  the  expulsion  of  the  Jews  from  the 
Province  of  Radom  took  place.  The  whole  population 
was  driven  out  within  a  few  hours  during  the  night.  At 
11  o'clock  the  people  were  informed  that  they  had  to 
leave,  with  a  threat  that  any  one  found  at  daybreak 
would  be  hanged.  And  so  in  the  darkness  of  the  night 
began  the  exodus  of  the  Jews  to  the  nearest  town,  Ilzha, 
thirty  versts  away.  Old  men,  invalids  and  paralytics  had 
to  be  carried  on  people's  arms  because  there  were  no 
vehicles. 

"The  police  and  the  gendarmes  treated  the  Jewish 
refugees  precisely  like  criminals.  At  one  station,  for 
instance,  the  Jewish  Commission  of  Homel  was  not  even 
allowed  to  approach  the  trains  to  render  aid  to  the 
refugees  or  to  give  them  food  and  water.  In  one  case 
a  train  which  was  conveying  the  victims  was  com- 
pletely sealed  and  when  finally  opened  most  of  the  in- 
mates were  found  half  dead,  sixteen  down  with  scarlet 
fever  and  one  with  typhus.  .  .  . 

"In  some  places  the  governors  simply  made  sport  of 
the  innocent  victims;  among  those  who  particularly  dis- 
tinguished themselves  were  the  governors  of  Poltava, 
Minsk,  and  Ekaterinoslav  .  .  .  who  illegally  took  away 
the  passports  of  the  victims  and  substituted  provisional 
certificates  instructing  them  to  appear  at  given  places  in 
one  of  five  provinces  at  a  given  date.  When  they  pre- 
sented themselves  at  these  designated  places  they  were 
shuttled  back  and  forth  from  point  to  point  at  the 
whim  or  caprice  of  local  officials. 

"In  Poltava  the  Jewish  Relief  Committee  was  officially 
reprimanded  by  the  governor  for  assuming  the  name 
'Committee  for  the  Aid  of  Jewish  Sufferers  from  the 
War,'  and  ordered  to  rename  itself  'Committee  to  Aid  the 


pjii^W.v 


4 
* 


fT-:*^ 


DANGEROUS   ENEMIES 


JEWS    AND    WAR  27 

Expelled'  on  the  ground,  as  stated  explicitly  in  the  order, 
that  the  Jews  had  been  expelled  because  they  were  po- 
litically unreliable — and,  therefore,  presumably,  de- 
served no  help."  ^ 

From  the  foregoing  it  will  readily  be  seen  that 
what  the  Jews  of  America  were  called  upon  to 
cope  with  was  something  enormously  greater  than 
the  mere  relief  of  a  civil  population  suffering  the 
consequence  of  a  great  war.  The  problem  of 
America  in  dealing  with  Belgium  was  of  that  or- 
dinary variety.  The  situation  of  the  Jews  in  the 
Russian  Empire  was  in  an  entirely  separate  class. 
Only  the  first  act  in  this  drama  can  in  any  way  be 
compared  with  it.  The  second  act,  however,  was 
but  incidentally,  as  I  have  ventured  to  say  before, 
a  condition  created  by  international  hostilities.  It 
was  obviously  and  fundamentally  the  rescuing  of 
an  entire  people  from  an  ancient  conspiracy  en- 
deavoring to  accomplish  its  dastardly  purpose  in 
the  chaos  and  darkness  of  a  world  upheaval. 
What  the  Jews  of  Eastern  Europe  were  threatened 
with  was  not  the  temporary  suffering  and  decima- 
tion inevitable  in  war,  but  the  total  extermination  by 
ingenious  and  rapid  torture  of  a  whole  race.  Hap- 
pily, the  eyes  of  the  world,  for  all  its  terrifying 
preoccupations,  could  pierce  through  this  artifi- 

1  Op.  cit.,  pp.  62-3.     Quoted  from  Evreyskaya  Zhizn,  Aug.  9, 
1915. 


28  THEJEWPAYS 

cially  erected  opaque  barrier,  and  to  a  degree  in- 
tervene. The  climax  of  the  piece  was  yet  to  be 
enacted.  Bolshevism,  that  ingenious  universal 
weapon  invented  by  a  generous  Providence  for  the 
use  of  reactionaries  everywhere,  had  not  yet  been 
perfected.  How  American  Jewry  and  the  decent 
lovers  of  justice  and  kindliness  in  the  world  are  to 
cope  with  this  new  engine  of  misrepresentation  is 
the  problem  that  the  Great  War  hands  on  to  the 
coming  period  of  peace. 


CHAPTER   III 

THE  RELIANCE  OF  THE  JEW  IN 
THE  NEW  WORLD 

FOR  more  than  a  generation  past  the  remnant 
of  oppressed  Jewry  in  the  Old  World  has  had 
its  eyes  turned  to  the  West  for  salvation.  With 
but  little  exaggeration  it  may  be  said  that  every 
Jew  in  Europe  (failing  the  realization  of  the  Zion- 
ist hope)  contemplates  America  as  his  ultimate 
home.  The  Jews,  more  than  any  other  unemanci- 
pated  race,  have  taken  the  American  experiment  and 
the  American  tradition  to  his  heart.  To  a  greater 
degree  than  any  other  they  have  listened  to  the 
promise  of  the  New  World  and  accepted  it  literally. 
It  should  not  be  hard  to  understand  why,  when  one 
keeps  in  mind  that  European  Jewry  has  had  the 
longest  and  bitterest  career  of  oppression  of  all  the 
peoples  of  the  Old  World. 

But  beyond  the  fond  dream  of  some  day  be- 
coming an  American  himself,  the  common  man 
overseas,  and  particularly  the  Jew,  has  looked  upon 
the  New  World  as  some  sort  of  a  divinely  appointed 

29 


30  THEJEWPAYS 

refuge  whither  his  kin  might  betake  themselves  to 
escape  the  terrible  uncertainty  of  existence  in  the 
ancient  home  and  to  come  forward  in  time  of  need 
with  proffers  of  counsel  and  material  assistance. 

Among  European  Jewry  this  is  one  of  the  vivid 
portraitures  of  America — that  she  is  a  land  where 
a  part  of  the  Jewish  people  have  prospered  and 
been  spared  the  struggles  and  sufferings  of  their 
fellows  abroad,  so  that  they  might  be  ready  in 
emergencies  to  help  those  whom  they  had  left  be- 
hind. It  is  characteristic  of  Jewish  solidarity  that 
the  ghettoes  have  ever  regarded  their  more  for- 
tunate sons  in  free  and  prosperous  lands  as  if  they 
still  were  part  and  parcel  of  the  communal  body 
with  all  the  responsibility  of  unbroken  member- 
ship. The  East-European  Jew  experiences  a  per- 
sonal gratification  in  the  thought  that  the  children 
of  his  people  are  sharing  the  freedom  and  plenty 
of  the  far-away  Republic;  and  he  can  face  the 
prospect  of  dire  misfortune  with  the  thought  that 
his  brethren  in  blood  and  faith  are  so  situated  that 
they  can  come  to  his  relief. 

It  is  the  modern  version  of  the  ancient  dream  of 
the  Messiah.  Even  with  the  devoutest  in  the  Euro- 
pean ghettoes,  whose  faith  in  the  divine  promise 
of  a  restored  Israel  is  undiminished,  this  shift  from 
the  traditional  trust  in  a  legendary  savior  coming 
out  of  the  East,  to  reliance  upon  a  more  realistic 


RELIANCE  OF  THE  JEW     31 

Providence  in  the  Western  Hemisphere  is  unmis- 
takable. In  the  past  thirty  or  forty  years  the  Jew- 
ries of  Russia  and  Austria  and  Rumania  turned 
ever  more  in  their  distress  toward  the  nations  of 
the  West,  and  especially  to  America,  as  to  the  mold- 
ers  of  their  destiny.  The  rehabilitation  of  Pales- 
tine, the  complex  relations  between  Jews  and  local 
authority,  the  transfer  of  millions  of  their  numbers 
to  more  liberal  climes  when  life  in  their  native 
homes  became  unbearable,  the  intervention  of  the 
decent  opinion  of  the  world  in  times  of  renewed 
oppression — in  emergencies  of  endless  variety,  the 
Jew  has  become  accustomed  to  look  for  help  to  his 
influential  fellows  in  the  democracies  of  Western 
Europe  and  the  United  States. 

I  am  not  certain  whether  the  Jews  of  America 
have  always  been  very  keenly  ^live  to  this  confi- 
dence on  the  part  of  their  less  fortunate  brethren 
in  the  old  countries.  If  they  have  not,  they  con- 
stitute a  striking  exception  to  the  other  peoples  and 
races  who  make  up  the  American  nation.  For 
among  all  other  groups  in  the  United  States  there 
is  a  very  vivid  consciousness  of  the  responsibility 
that  they  bear  toward  the  destiny  of  their  kin  in 
the  homeland.  We  are  accustomed  to  the  sympa- 
thy of  Irishmen  and  Germans  in  America  with  the 
proper  strivings  of  their  peoples  in  the  Old  World ; 
but  in  the  past  few  years  we  have  seen  an  even 


32  THEJEWPAYS 

more  striking  demonstration  of  these  family  ties 
between  European  peoples  and  their  American 
kinsfolk  in  the  lively  participation  (countenanced 
and  even  encouraged  by  our  Government)  of  Poles 
and  Bohemians,  Russians  and  Jugo-Slavs,  Ruman- 
ians and  Ukrainians  in  the  nationalistic  and  hu- 
manitarian movements  of  their  homelands.  Never 
before  in  the  career  of  this  country  had  groups  of 
European  origin  so  persistently  and  openly  at- 
tempted to  advance  the  legitimate  interests  of  their 
native  countries. 

Everywhere  in  the  Old  World  America  has  be- 
come, by  countless  demonstrations,  the  shining  hope 
of  the  unfortunate.  At  least  it  was  so  until  we 
entered  the  war.  Not  alone  the  direct  kin  of  Euro- 
pean nations,  but  the  American  people  as  a  whole, 
have  time  and  again  poured  out  their  hearts  and 
their  purses  to  the  victims  of  sudden  disaster. 
When  earthquakes  shook  villages  from  their 
foundations,  when  volcanoes  left  multitudes  home- 
less and  helpless,  when  great  fires  destroyed  cities 
and  cast  their  inhabitants  upon  the  mercy  of  the 
elements;  in  famine,  in  wars  and  in  pogroms,  the 
American  Government,  on  behalf  of  the  American 
people,  seldom  failed  to  respond  with  a  generous 
hand  to  the  call  of  the  suffering.  America  seemed 
to  be  the  philanthropist  among  the  nations,  just  as 
she  had  been  for  a  century  the  model  of  revolution 


RELIANCE  OF  THE  JEW     33 

and  popular  aspiration  to  liberty  and  the  asylum 
of  heroes  and  rebels  against  tyranny.  And  the 
poor  and  oppressed  and  the  disinherited  of  the 
earth  came  to  regard  her  as  something  more  than 
a  land  of  liberty  and  wealth.  She  became  in  their 
minds  a  friend  and  a  prop  in  adversity. 

Precisely  as  an  individual  family  in  the  Old 
World  sends  forth  one  of  its  younger  members  to 
blaze  the  trail  for  the  entire  group  and  relies  upon 
him  later  to  draw  the  group  after  him  to  the  New 
World  and  to  make  their  lot  more  tolerable  in  the 
interval,  so  European  Jewry  has,  metaphorically, 
sent  forth  portions  of  itself  to  America  as  a  meas- 
ure of  security  against  future  needs.  The  first  of 
their  pioneer-pilgrims  were  a  handful  of  the  so- 
named  Spanish  and  Portuguese  Sephardic  Jews. 
In  the  middle  of  the  last  century  the  delegation 
was  chosen  from  among  the  defeated  democracy  of 
the  German  kingdoms  and  dukedoms.  And  both, 
whether  consciously  or  not,  embarked  as  a  kind  of 
advance  guard  of  the  great  Jewish  community  of 
the  European  continent.  They  settled  in  the  New 
World  and  became  the  inheritors  of  the  liberty 
and  the  material  prosperity  for  the  lack  of  which 
they  had  deserted  the  scenes  of  their  childhood. 
Had  it  not  been  for  the  persistence  of  the  Russian 
despotism  with  its  recurrent  measures  of  oppres- 
sion and  its  petty  aping  neighbors — above  all,  had 


34  THEJEWPAYS 

t  not  been  for  the  oudJm  calamity  of  191", 
American  Jewry  might,  I  suspect,  have  become  ut- 
terly detached  from  its  Old  World  ties  and  forgot- 
ten its  mission  and  its  responsibility. 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE  EARLIEST  RESPONSE 

GERMANY  declared  war  on  Russia  on  the  1st 
of  August,  and  within  scarcely  more  than  a 
fortnight  New  York  City  witnessed  its  first  con- 
ference on  behalf  of  the  victims.  I  am  not  statis- 
tically certain  that  this  meeting  of  a  group  of  im- 
migrant Jews  was  the  very  first  to  consider  the  prob- 
lem for  relieving  war  sufferers,  but  I  venture  the 
opinion  that  if  any  gathering  preceded  them  the 
people  who  promoted  it  were  equipped  with  seven 
league  boots.  The  Jewish  race  has  a  tradition  and 
a  deserved  reputation  in  benevolence  which  no 
other  people  can  match,  and  its  record  is  an  out- 
growth of  its  two  thousand  years  of  almost  contin- 
uous oppression  and  suffering.  There  is  no  Jew- 
ish community  anywhere  in  the  world  that  is  not 
prepared  at  any  moment  of  the  day  and  as  a  part  of 
its  ordinary  routine,  to  respond  to  a  call  for  help 
from  its  less  fortunate  brethren  in  one  quarter  or 
another.  The  Jews  of  America,  especially,  be- 
cause of  their  fortunate  position  socially  and  eco- 
nomically, have  in  the  past  generation  received  an 

35 


36  THEJEWPAYS 

education  and  developed  a  technique  in  the  process 
of  relieving  suffering  which  is  unique  even  among 
Jews.  Beginning  with  the  Russian  massacres  of 
1881  and  the  migration  of  the  masses  of  survivors 
which  ensued  upon  them,  the  Jews  of  America  have 
undergone  a  regimen  of  training  of  the  most  thor- 
oughgoing sort  and  which  culminated  in  the  pres- 
ent emergency.  Eighteen  eighty-one  was  but  a 
starter.  It  was  followed  in  rapid  succession  by 
the  misery  of  the  Galicians,  the  movement  from 
Rumania,  and  more  recently  by  the  pogroms  which 
preceded  and  accompanied  and  followed  upon  the 
revolution  of  1905.  So  that  when  1914  came 
along  with  its  budget  of  horrors  the  philanthropic 
Jewish  purse  in  America  was  well  filled  and  ready. 
It  was  especially  fitting  that  orthodox  Jewry 
should  be  the  first  to  step  into  the  breach.  For  it 
is  this  element  along  with  another  group  which  was 
later  to  be  organized  into  the  People's  Relief  Com- 
mittee, which  was  bound  by  the  closest  ties  of  kin- 
ship to  the  sufferers  abroad.  Orthodox  Jewry  in 
America  consists  almost  solely  of  Eastern  Euro- 
peans— of  the  very  people  on  whose  behalf  the 
relief  expeditions  of  the  past  generation  were  in- 
stituted. For  the  most  part,  the  victims  of  the 
present  war  are  their  own  blood  relatives.  The 
funds  which  they  collected  went  directly  to  care 
for  the  comforts  of  the  brothers  and  sisters  and  the 


EARLIEST    RESPONSE     37 

fathers  and  mothers  of  the  donors.  Moreover,  this 
was  the  first  great  opportunity  that  this  group  had 
had  of  contributing  materially  and  on  an  organized 
scale  to  the  welfare  of  that  part  of  the  Jewish  peo- 
ple which  still  remained  under  the  yoke  from  which 
they  had  escaped. 

How  readily  and  magnificently  they  met  this 
opportunity  is  now  a  matter  of  proud  record.  For 
the  initial  gathering  of  the  18th  of  August  which 
was  of  a  preliminary  character,  was  followed  a 
month  later  by  a  much  more  representative  meeting 
at  which  plans  for  an  organization  were  actually 
outlined  and  an  immediate  attempt  made  to  rally 
kindred  groups  throughout  the  United  States.  It 
happened  that  the  solemn  season  of  the  New  Year 
and  the  Day  of  Atonement  was  approaching. 
Therefore  the  meeting  proceeded  to  address  tele- 
grams to  some  hundred  religious  bodies  in  as  many 
cities,  urging  them  to  turn  the  fast-days  to  account 
by  issuing  appeals  to  their  respective  congregations 
on  behalf  of  the  war  sufferers  on  those  days. 
Within  two  months  of  the  outbreak  of  the  war  an 
establishment  was  actually  in  operation  with  of- 
fices in  New  York  and  with  machinery  for  collect- 
ing funds  installed  in  many  ends  of  the  country. 
The  organization  took  the  name  of  the  Central  Com- 
mittee for  the  Relief  of  Jews  Suffering  Through 
the  War. 


\ 


38  THEJEWPAYS 

These  early  meetings  and  the  men  and  women 
who  gathered  at  them  gave  the  new  organization  the 
tone  and  temper  which  they  have  preserved  through 
their  honorable  career  down  to  the  present  mo- 
ment. They  set  their  stamp  not  only  upon  the 
type  of  the  personnel  in  the  organization,  but  to  a 
very  significant  degree  also  they  laid  the  founda- 
tions of  its  approach  and  its  methodology.  The 
Central  Relief  Committee  had  and  still  has  its  con- 
stituency in  that  element  of  immigrant  Jewry  which 
distinguishes  itself  primarily  by  its  adherence  to 
the  ancient  Jewish  faith  and  tradition.  On  the 
one  side  it  is  flanked  by  the  reform  group  (which  is 
Western  European  by  origin),  and  on  the  other  side 
by  the  great  working  mass  whose  affiliations  are 
with  the  labor  unions  and  kindred  movements. 
The  rank  and  file  of  the  Central  Committee  are, 
socially  and  by  tradition,  the  middle  class.  They 
consist  in  the  main  of  the  storekeeper  and  the  small 
business  man.  Spiritually  they  belong  in  the  camp 
of  the  traditional  faith  and  ritual.  Their  leader- 
ship is  preeminently  to  be  found  among  the  rabbis 
of  die  old  dispensation  and  in  a  small  but  power- 
ful group  of  intellectuals  who  constitute  the  mod- 
ern prop  of  the  synagogue.  It  is  a  middle  class 
group  not  merely  by  antecedents  and  aspirations, 
but  by  the  nature  of  its  position  in  the  Jewish  com- 
mmiity  as  well.     It  is  a  transition  element,  stand- 


EARLIEST    RESPONSE     39 

ing  as  it  does  between  the  more  Americanized 
Western  European  wing  and  the  class-conscious 
idealistic  working  party  of  the  Left.  Except  for 
the  constant  progress  of  Jewish  immigration  into 
the  United  States,  its  numbers  would  have  been 
increasingly  thinning  out  by  an  inevitable  process 
of  assimilation  and  absorption  into  the  other  two 
groups.  In  actual  fact,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
it  is  a  diminishing  body  and  that  of  all  immigrant 
groups  it  is  having  the  hardest  struggle  to  survive 
the  corroding  influences  of  the  American  environ- 
ment. 

The  reader  should  keep  this  characterization  in 
mind  in  estimating  the  service  of  this  committee. 
There  is  a  disposition  in  certain  circles  to  appraise 
the  institution  by  a  consideration  of  mere  financial 
figures  detached  from  their  human  implications, 
and  thus  to  minimize  the  immense  actual  service 
which  they  represent.  It  has  been  said  over  and 
over  again  that  there  is  no  logical  necessity  for  the 
existence  of  the  organization  at  all.  Considering 
its  constituency,  the  argument  runs,  the  amounts 
that  have  been  collected  by  the  organization  could 
have  been  doubled  or  even  quadrupled  if  the  work 
had  been  conducted  by  the  two  other  agencies  in 
the  field.  Appeals  for  funds  addressed  to  the 
membership  of  the  Central  Committee  would  have 
carried  vastly  more  weight,  according  to  its  critics, 


40  THE    JEW    PAYS 

if  they  had  emanated  from  the  great  influential 
leaders  of  the  American  Jewish  Relief  Committee. 
I  am  inclined  to  recognize  the  validity  of  much  of 
this  reasoning,  but  I  cannot  forget  a  number  of  fac- 
tors on  tlie  other  side  which  tend  strongly  to  coun- 
terbalance the  greater  part  of  this  adverse  attitude. 
I  cannot  forget  that  the  Central  Relief  Committee 
was  the  first  organization  to  heed  the  call  of  the 
sufferers  abroad;  that  its  membership,  both  by 
origin  and  mental  constitution,  are  excellently 
equipped  to  understand  the  needs  of  their  unhappy 
kinsfolk,  and  above  all,  that  the  social  and  spiritual 
by-products  of  any  such  enterprise  as  they  had  been 
engaged  in  are  of  even  greater  worth  than  the  en- 
terprise itself,  and  that  its  usefulness  in  this  sense 
could  not  have  been  achieved  for  it  by  any  other 
agency.  Nevertheless,  I  am  strongly  of  the  opin- 
ion that  a  coalescence  of  the  Central  and  American 
Relief  Committees,  at  this  time  at  least,  would  be 
of  immeasurable  benefit  to  the  cause  for  which 
both  are  laboring.  The  by-products  of  which  I 
just  spoke — the  more  thorough  consolidation  of 
orthodox  Jewry  in  the  United  States,  the  revival 
of  Jewish  consciousness  in  individuals  scattered 
far  and  wide  in  the  remote  ends  of  the  land,  the 
inculcation  of  a  sense  of  responsibility  on  the  part 
of  such  individuals,  the  development  of  an  esprit 
de  corps  and  a  temper  of  mutual  aid,  and  in  par- 


EARLIEST    RESPONSE     41 

ticular,  the  heightening  of  the  esteem  for  the  im- 
migrant Jew  on  the  part  of  his  neighbors  wherever 
he  may  live  in  America — are  things  of  enormous 
significance ;  but  tliey  now  belong  to  history.  They 
are  achievements  which  may  well  make  the  Central 
Committee  and  its  affiliated  organizations  proud  of 
their  record.  But  the  future  also  has  its  claims; 
and  for  the  future  I  can  conceive  of  nothing  more 
urgent  than  a  union,  as  complete  as  may  be,  of  the 
two  bodies  which  have  so  much  in  common.  In- 
deed, an  organic  alliance  between  the  Central  Com- 
mittee and  the  American  would  in  itself  be  an  ex- 
pression of  that  spirit  of  accommodation  and  co- 
operation which  is  to  be  reckoned  as  the  principal 
benefit  accruing  to  the  American  Jew  in  the 
process  of  his  generous  efforts  for  his  brethren  in 
Europe. 

The  religious  cast  of  the  newly  formed  com- 
mittee at  once  began  to  color  its  activities.  Begin- 
ning with  its  appeal  to  orthodox  synagogues  and 
their  congregations  all  over  the  country,  to  which 
I  referred  above,  the  management  proceeded  to 
avail  itself  of  whatever  materials  it  could  cull  from 
the  religious  consciousness  of  its  people  and  to  turn 
them  into  assets  for  consolidating  the  structure  of 
its  tragic  undertaking.  The  very  history  and  tra- 
dition of  the  Jewish  people  furnished  a  tremendous 
store-house  of  memories  and  symbols  which  were 


42  THE    JEW    PAYS 

ready  at  hand  to  be  converted  into  emotional  stim- 
uli.    The  very  speech  of  ancient  Israel  in  all  its 
eloquent  and  touching  modulations  had  been  some- 
how prophetically  fashioned  for  this  supreme  hour. 
The  trained  organizer,  equipped  with  a  knowledge 
of  the  Jewish  soul,  could  turn  to  the  sacred  books 
and  find  therein  texts  without  number  for  his  pur- 
pose.    One-quarter  of  the  content  of  the  Bble  is 
a  record  of  Jewish  struggle  and  sorrow,  and  fairly 
teems  with  gems  in  the  literature  of  exhortation 
and  appeal  to  compassion.     Half  the  Jewish  fasts 
and  feasts  are  redolent  of  exile  and  oppression 
and   the   threat   of  national  extermination.     The 
Passover  service  begins  with  an  invitation  to  the 
hungry  and  the  stricken  to  come  and  partake  of 
the  bread  and  prosperity  of  their  more  fortunate 
brethren.     The  New  Year  and  the  Day  of  Atone- 
ment are  essentially  days  of  repentance,  and  in  the 
Jewish  tradition  repentance  ever  begins  with  love 
and  charity  toward  one's  neighbor.     The  Feast  of 
Purim  celebrates  tlie  memory  of  a  man  and  a 
woman  who  were  instrumental  in  rescuing  the  peo- 
ple of  Israel  from  annihilation;  and  the  Ninth  of 
Ab  is  a  fast  of  mourning  over  the  destruction  of 
the  national  life.     No  people  can  match  this  ac- 
cumulation of  tragic  record. 

The  management  of  tlie  Central  Relief  Commit- 
tee had  a  vivid  consciousness  of  the  value  of  its 


EARLIEST    RESPONSE     43 

resources  and  it  promptly  set  about  to  make  the 
most  of  them.  It  organized  the  rabbinical  fra- 
ternity into  a  kind  of  auxiliary  corps,  and  each 
rabbi  in  turn  transformed  his  congregation  into 
a  subsidiary  relief  committee  for  raising  funds. 
Scarcely  a  service  was  allowed  to  pass  without 
some  sort  of  reminder  of  the  unspeakable  events 
abroad.  The  printed  matter  wh'ch  was  circulated 
to  every  comer  of  the  country  was  interlarded  with 
references  to  the  present  woes  of  Israel  in  the  lan- 
guage of  the  past.  Each  single  day  almost  of  the 
ancient  calendar  furnished  some  pretext  for  con- 
trasting the  splendid  record  of  ancient  unity  with 
the  contemporary  danger  of  disintegration  and  dis- 
appearance. Traditional  phrases,  known  to  every 
Jewish  child,  were  culled  from  venerable  texts 
and  found  new  applications  in  the  service  of 
the  war  victims. 

Nor  did  the  committee  confine  itself  to  the  in- 
strumentalities provided  for  it  by  the  past.  It 
early  began  to  make  an  astute  use  of  American 
custom  and  mode  of  life,  in  so  far  as  these  af- 
fected their  immigrant  constituency.  In  the  sum- 
mer, as  an  instance,  the  vacation  hunters  were  cir- 
cularized with  an  appeal  which  read,  "Enjoy  your 
vacation  but  remember  that  others  need  bread." 
It  was  one  of  the  members  of  this  organization 
who  first  saw  the  possibilities  of  the  saving  stamp 


44  THE    JEW    PAYS 

as  an  aid  in  collecting  money.  The  device  of  get- 
ting storekeepers  to  contribute  certain  percentages 
of  their  sales  on  given  days  to  the  Cause,  while  not 
invented  by  this  body,  was  put  by  it  to  excellent 
use.  And  finally  it  was  this  group  of  alien  men 
and  women,  most  of  whom  had  scarcely  acquired 
the  use  of  the  English  language,  that  courageously 
presented  its  petition  to  the  President  of  the  United 
States  for  an  official  proclamation  from  him  setting 
aside  a  Jewish  Relief  Day  on  the  4th  of  October, 
1914.  The  proclamation  was  subsequently  repro- 
duced in  a  variety  of  forms  and  was  the  means  of 
directing  untold  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dol- 
lars into  the  coffers  of  the  sufferers  of  Eastern 
Europe  and  Asia  Minor. 


CHAPTER   V 

AMERICA  TO  THE  RESCUE 

THE  Central  Relief  Committee  had  been  but  a 
gauge  of  the  state  of  feeling  in  American 
Jewry  upon  the  outbreak  of  the  European  war  and 
the  calamity  to  the  Jewish  people  abroad  which  it 
was  bound  to  bring  in  its  trail.  It  had  been  quite 
natural  that  the  tragedy  to  the  Old  World  ghetto 
should  reecho  first  and  most  profoundly  in  its 
counterpart  in  the  New.  But  ere  long  the  wave  of 
horror  and  sympathy  spread  to  the  remotest  corners 
of  the  great  Jewish  community  in  America  and  gave 
impetus  to  an  immense  undertaking  to  cope  with 
the  emergency.  On  the  25th  of  October,  1914 — 
less  than  three  months  after  the  opening  of  hos- 
tilities,— Mr.  Louis  Marshall  made  the  first  attempt 
to  enlist  the  organized  effort  of  American  Jewry 
in  the  great  task.  As  the  President  of  the  most  in- 
fluential Jewish  body  in  America — the  American 
Jewish  Committee, — he  invited  the  leading  Jewish 
men  and  women  in  commerce,  philanthropy  and  af- 
fairs to  a  meeting  at  the  Temple  Emanu-El.  No 
more  representative  body  had,  I  daresay,  ever  been 

45 


46  THEJEWPAYS 

brought  together  in  the  history  of  Jews  in  America. 
Platform  and  floor  alike  were  crowded  with  men  as 
well  as  women  whose  names  have  become  known 
far  beyond  the  confines  of  not  only  their  racial 
group  but  of  America  herself.  It  was  a  meeting 
almost  wholly  of  world  figures — men  noted  for 
huge  industrial  and  financial  enterprises;  men 
whose  names  had  been  for  a  quarter  of  a  century 
identified  with  international  benevolences,  leaders 
in  religion  and  jurisprudence,  commerce  and  sci- 
ence— men  for  the  most  part  whose  names  had  be- 
come a  word  to  conjure  with  in  the  remotest  cor- 
ners of  the  earth. 

Little  parliamentary  claptrap  marked  the  delib- 
erations of  this  distinguished  gathering.  The 
business  in  hand  was  as  clear  as  it  was  urgent,  and 
there  was  in  consequence  a  unanimity  of  purpose 
and  procedure  not  always  characteristic,  alas,  of 
Jewish  public  affairs.  It  required  scarcely  any 
time  to  crystallize  an  organization,  and  there  de- 
veloped no  opposition  or  partisanship  in  the  choice 
of  its  directing  officers.  The  new  body  was  con- 
ceived of  as  an  off-shoot  and  a  subsidiary  of  the 
American  Jewish  Committee,  and  Mr.  Louis 
Marshall,  for  this  as  well  as  for  many  other  and 
better  reasons  was  made  the  Chairman;  with  Mr. 
Felix  M.  Warburg  as  Treasurer  and  Mr.  Cyrus  L. 
Sulzberger  as  Secretary. 


TO    THE    RESCUE  47 

For  a  twofold  reason  the  newly  formed  com- 
mittee decided  to  use  existing  machinery  in  the 
pursuit  of  its  task.  To  begin  with,  no  one  had  the 
remotest  notion  of  the  length  of  time  during  which 
the  organization  would  be  necessary.  It  was  rather 
hoped  that  the  war  and  its  consequences  to  Eu- 
ropean Jews  would  be  of  short  duration.  More- 
over the  employment  of  agencies  already  estab- 
lished would  save  time.  The  need  over  there  was 
too  urgent  to  wait  upon  the  creation  of  special  in- 
strumentalities. Hence  Mr.  Sulzberger  who  as  the 
Secretary  was  charged  with  the  practical  elabora- 
tion of  the  plans  of  the  body  invited  the  Industrial 
Removal  Office  and  its  directorate  to  take  over  at 
least  for  the  time  being  the  affairs  of  the  American 
Jewish  Relief  Committee.  The  choice  was  a  happy 
one  in  a  variety  of  ways.  Of  all  the  existing  Jew- 
ish philanthropies  the  I.  R.  0.  was  the  one  like- 
liest to  be  rendered  inoperative  as  a  result  of  the 
war.  It  was  an  institution  whose  object  had  been 
for  many  years  past  to  assist  the  great  masses  of 
Jewish  immigrants  to  spread  inland  from  the  ports. 
The  war  promised  to  put  a  sudden  and  at  least  a 
temporary  stop  to  Jewish  immigration.  Here, 
then,  was  a  peace  establishment  which  could  with 
the  least  dislocation  be  turned  to  uses  created  by 
war.  Most  important  of  all,  Mr.  David  M.  Dress- 
ier, the  Director  of  the  organization,  had  demon- 


48  THEJEWPAYS 

strated  by  years  of  service  his  capacity  for  adapting 
himself  to  untried  tasks  of  magnitude  and  im- 
portance. Mr.  Bressler  hesitated  for  a  time.  He 
was  willing  enough  to  turn  over  his  office  but  he 
was  not  certain,  in  his  modesty,  whether  he  was  al- 
together qualified  to  become  the  directing  head  of 
an  undertaking  as  vast  and  complex  as  this  one  was 
likely  to  become.  Moreover,  he  had  for  some  time 
been  contemplating  a  change  in  his  own  career  and 
he  considered  this  a  good  time  to  effect  it.  Now 
that,  for  the  first  time  since  the  organization  of  the 
Industrial  Removal  Office,  a  lull  was  about  to  occur 
in  its  affairs,  it  might  be  well  for  him  to  try  his 
energies  upon  more  remunerative  employments. 
But  Mr.  Sulzberger  would  brook  no  pleas  of  either 
modesty  or  self-interest;  and  after  long  persuasion 
Mr.  Bressler  became  the  Director  of  the  new  Relief 
Committee  with  the  title  of  Assistant  Secretary. 

I  have  carefully  studied  the  records  of  my  ma- 
terial and  they  leave  little  doubt  in  my  mind  that 
the  tremendous  success  and  influence  of  the  or- 
ganization in  the  past  five  years  has  rested  on  the 
foundations  laid  for  it  during  these  early  months 
of  Mr.  Bressler's  incumbency.  Virtually  without 
exception  all  the  ingenious  devices  and  instrumen- 
talities which  were  employed  with  such  incredible 
efficiency  later  on  were  either  actually  elaborated 
or   at   least   conceived   during   this   early   period. 


TO    THE    RESCUE  49 

What  followed  later  was  in  large  measure  a  states- 
manlike expansion  and  application  of  policies 
initiated  at  the  beginning.  I  have  no  wish  to  clut- 
ter my  account  of  a  unique  and  stirring  movement 
among  the  Jews  of  America  with  controversies,  and 
least  of  all  do  I  desire  to  be  partial  to  individuals. 
Wherever  the  achievements  and  contributions  of 
persons  or  loyal  groups  in  the  great  Cause  are  in 
question,  I  have  no  other  thought  but  to  assign 
credit  where  it  belongs.  And  I  have  no  hesitation 
in  stating  my  conclusions  that  the  present  splendid 
structure  rests  very  securely  on  the  underpinnings 
of  its  early  Director. 

Thus,  for  instance,  the  very  bone  and  sinew  of 
the  great  organism  as  we  know  it  to-day  consists 
in  a  country-wide  system  of  state  committees  and 
county  and  local  sub-committees,  all  of  which  center 
in  the  home  office  at  New  York;  and  this  intricate 
and  difficult  establishment  had  its  inception  during 
the  first  six  months  of  the  Committee's  existence. 
As  a  conception,  it  is,  to  be  sure,  one  of  the  most 
elementary  devices  in  large-scale  organization;  but 
Mr.  Bressler's  part  in  its  elaboration  went  consid- 
erably beyond  the  mere  inception.  When  the  Com- 
mittee made  its  historic  departure  three  years  later 
there  was  little  to  alter  in  its  basic  and  original 
texture.  The  energies  generated  at  that  time  were 
directed  chiefly  to  an  intensification  of  the  process. 


50  THEJEWPAYS 

Mr.  Bressler  has  himself  admitted  with  character- 
istic frankness  that  neither  he  himself  nor  any  one 
else  that  he  can  think  of  could  have  carried  the 
work  to  the  great  heights  which  it  has  attained  in  the 
past  two  years  under  its  recent  management.  But 
there  can  be  no  two  opinions  of  the  impetus  which 
the  Committee  received  from  him  in  its  earliest 
endeavors.  Just  what  share  of  its  effectiveness  is 
due  to  him  and,  just  what  contributions  have  come 
from  other  sources,  it  will  be  quite  impossible  at 
this  time  to  determine.  Dr.  J.  L.  Magness,  Mr. 
Sulzberger  and  no  end  of  others  have,  I  know, 
labored  devotedly  with  time  and  energy  toward  the 
general  result.  But  there  is  no  unfairness,  I  take 
it,  in  the  custom  of  historians  to  lump  the  progress 
of  an  era  under  the  name  of  its  most  active  and 
titular  administrator. 

It  was,  as  far  as  I  can  gather,  the  Assistant  Secre- 
tary who  in  December,  1915,  proposed  that  great 
historic  mass  meeting  which  in  effect  furnished  the 
motive  power  of  the  undertaking  for  the  next  two 
years.  That  meeting  was  a  milestone  not  alone  in 
the  career  of  the  American  Jewish  Relief  Commit- 
tee nor  merely  in  the  annals  of  Jewish  generosity. 
It  marked  an  era  in  the  career  of  the  Jew  in 
America.  I  have  been  present  at  gatherings,  as- 
semblies and  conventions  of  many  sorts  where  en- 
thusiasm ran  high;  but  there  has  been  nothing  in 


TO    THE    RESCUE  51 

my  experience  to  equal  that.  This  was  not  a  mere 
mass  meeting;  it  was  one  of  those  events  which 
from  time  to  time  in  the  history  of  Israel  have 
stirred  an  entire  people  to  its  foundations  and 
marked  a  departure  in  its  career. 

The  meeting  was  held  in  Carnegie  Hall  and  it 
was  made  notable  by  at  least  three  striking  features. 
To  begin  with,  the  preliminary  arrangements  were 
novel.     Remembering   its   purpose,   Mr.   Bressler 
and  his  co-workers  were  determined  that,  as  far  as 
it  could  be  managed,  no  seat  in  the  hall  should  be 
occupied  by  any  one  except  a  prospective  generous 
contributor.     Therefore   it  was  announced  in  the 
press  that  no  seats  would  be  had  at  the  door.     Tick- 
ets could  be  obtained  only  by  asking  for  them  in 
advance.     Therefore,  again,  the  management  must 
see  to  it  that  men  and  women  of  large  means  were 
properly  inspired  with  the  desire  to  attend.     And 
the  line  was,  in  consequence,  very  lavishly  and  ap- 
petizingly  baited.     The  names  printed  on  the  pro- 
gram constituted  a  catalogue  of  America's  finest 
platform  orators.     The  result,  as  Mr.  Bressler  tells 
me,  was  that  scarcely  any  Jew  of  pecuniary  im- 
portance was  missing  when  the  meeting  was  called, 
and  that  until  the  very  hour  when  the  doors  were 
to  be  opened  requests  by  telephone  and  messenger 
kept  pouring  in  to  the  office  of  the  Committee  for 
tickets  and  more  tickets.     But  it  turned  out  that  a 


52  THEJEWPAYS 

considerable  number  of  the  speakers  as  announced 
had  failed  to  appear  and  this  was  one  more  of  the 
unique  characteristics  of  the  occasion;  for  it  left 
the  field  wide  open  to  that  unique  orator  in  Jewry 
whose  voice  and  whose  prophet-like  sincerity  are 
reminiscent  of  the  golden  age  of  Hebrew  eloquence. 
The  speaking  progressed  as  if  by  fore-thought  to 
a  more  and  more  noble  pitch,  until  it  culminated  in 
a  climax  when  Dr.  Judah  L.  Magnes  arose  before 
the  great  audience  and  delivered  what  was  on  all 
hands  regarded  as  the  most  moving  appeal  that 
American  Jews  had  ever  listened  to. 

And  then  followed  the  third  distinguishing 
feature  of  the  evening.  Never  had  an  audience  of 
well-to-do,  comfortable  and  distinguished  people 
been  so  thoroughly  lifted  out  of  their  complacency. 
As  Dr.  Magnes  proceeded  from  point  to  point  in 
his  masterly  portraiture  of  the  frightful  scenes  in 
the  homelands  of  Jewry,  one  could  hear  women  in 
every  corner  of  the  Hall  softly  sobbing  until,  as 
the  speaker  reached  the  end,  the  entire  assemblage 
had  thrown  all  reserve  to  the  winds.  Men  arose  in 
their  seats  and  waved  their  hands  toward  the  plat- 
form in  an  access  of  emotion,  begging  to  be  per- 
mitted to  help.  Women  with  tear-stained  faces 
nervously  wrenched  jewels  from  their  ears  and 
fingers  and  tossed  them  upon  the  platform.  At  a 
signal  from  the  speaker  the  ushers  moved  up  the 


TO    THE    RESCUE  53 

aisles  with  their  baskets  to  take  up  the  cash  and 
checks  and  pledges  which  were  in  all  parts  of  the 
hall  being  spontaneously  held  aloft.  An  elderly 
man  who  had  been  standing  in  a  corner  by  the  door 
and  who  later  proved  to  be  a  cap-maker  out  of 
work,  elbowed  his  way  through  the  throng  and 
upon  reaching  the  platform  begged  Dr.  Magnes  to 
accept  the  nickel  he  had  saved  for  his  carfare. 
"How,"  he  said  in  a  tremulous  voice,  "can  I  think 
of  riding  luxuriously  in  the  car  when  my  brothers 
and  sisters  back  in  the  old  country  are  suffering!" 
Until  2  o'clock  that  morning  officials  and  ushers 
stayed  in  the  hall  to  count  the  collections. 

This  first  Carnegie  Hall  mass  meeting  was  a 
barometer  indicating  the  extent  to  which  American 
Jewry  was  ready  to  succor  its  unfortunate  fellows  in 
Europe.  To  be  sure,  its  audience  had  consisted 
almost  entirely  of  New  Yorkers.  None  the  less,  its 
splendid  spirit  and  achievements  left  no  doubt  in 
the  minds  of  the  men  and  women  who  had  or- 
ganized it  that  what  New  York  was  willing  to  do, 
the  rest  of  the  country  would  surely  be  prepared 
to  match  proportionately.  Hence  the  Campaign 
Committee  decided  that  its  previous  goal  of  one 
million  dollars  should  be  raised  to  three  millions. 
A  vast  quantity  of  stationery  which  had  been 
printed  for  publicity  purposes  had  to  be  the  next 
day  destroyed  so  as  not  to  divulge  the  original 


54  THE    JEW    PAYS 

objective  of  the  campaign.  Two  days  later  as  new 
contributions  and  pledges  began  to  pour  into  the 
offices  of  the  organization,  the  Committee  once 
more  realized  how  modest  its  hopes  had  been  and 
moved  its  quota  up  to  five  millions.  It  goes  with- 
out saying  that  this  latest  goal  was  more  than 
attained.  But  what  was  of  even  greater  sig- 
nificance than  the  mere  collection  of  huge  funds 
was  the  consolidation  of  the  Jewish  community  in 
the  United  States  into  a  more  unified  body.  The 
organization  of  committees  in  distant  cities  went 
on  apace  and  almost  without  effort  from  the  central 
office.  It  became  obvious  even  at  this  early  date 
that  the  sheer  progress  of  the  fund-raising  cam- 
paign would  prove  a  far  more  vital  factor  in  ex- 
tending the  organization  than  any  direct  attempt  at 
setting  up  subsidiary  agencies. 

The  rapid  advance  of  the  movement  throughout 
the  country  expressed  itself  in  a  growing  and  in- 
sistent demand  from  every  comer  of  the  land  for 
speakers  and  for  literature.  Dr.  Magnes's  address 
had  been  printed  and  sent  broadcast  and,  as  was  to 
be  foreseen,  there  immediately  arose  a  clamor 
for  his  presence  and  his  eloquence.  "We  are  try- 
ing to  do  our  share  in  our  city,"  so  the  demand 
usually  ran,  "and  if  you  will  only  send  us  Dr. 
Magnes  we  will  guarantee  that  we  will  over-sub- 
scribe any  quota  that  you  may  assign  us."     But 


TO    THE    RESCUE  55 

Dr.  Magnes  could  not,  obviously,  be  sent  every- 
where. Therefore  Mr.  Dressier  resolved  to  mul- 
tiply his  rare  asset.  New  York  and  other  cities 
were  rich  in  forensic  resources.  There  was  an 
abundance  of  both  talent  and  fame  which  were 
for  the  moment  lying  fallow  and  which  could  by 
proper  diplomatic  method  and  skillful  direction  be 
turned  to  account.  The  directorate  bee;an  with  the 
salient  figures.  It  enlisted  the  cooperation  of  mf^n 
of  the  caliber  of  Mr.  Nathan  Straus,  Mr.  Jacob  H. 
Schiff,  Mr.  Louis  Marshall.  But  diese  also  were 
limited  in  number  and  restricted  by  time  and  space, 
and  the  demand  for  them  was  increasing  from 
scores  to  hundreds.  It  became  therefore  necessary 
to  recruit  not  merely  leading  personalities  but  all 
the  talent  that  could  be  mustered.  Bv  the  time 
the  year  was  over  the  American  Jewish  Relief  Com- 
mittee had  organized  a  speakers'  bureau  which 
could  be  set  up  favorably  against  any  lyceum  or 
Chautauqua. 


CHAPTER   VI 

SLOW  PROGRESS 

FOR  three  years  the  movement  progressed  in 
this  fashion.  Millions  of  money  were  being 
collected.  Enthusiasm  was  running  high  and  the 
funds  were  actually  reaching  their  destination  and 
accomplishing  all  and  more  than  could  be  looked 
for.  But  somehow  the  feeling  began  to  grow 
among  the  leaders  as  well  as  the  rank  and  file  that 
the  machinery  was  not  developing  all  the  power 
that  it  might.  To  begin  with,  the  need  had  become 
increasingly  greater  since  1914  while  the  means, 
though  also  expanding,  had  not  kept  pace.  It  be- 
gan to  look  as  if  one  were  trying  to  fill  a  leaking 
barrel  with  a  spoon.  Moreover,  the  spirit  of  giv- 
ing, which  had  been  educated  to  an  undreamed-of 
degree  since  the  opening  of  hostilities,  was  not  ex- 
pressing itself  in  sufficiently  substantial  form.  The 
engine,  as  it  were,  was  turning  and  spinning  mer- 
rily, but  it  was  not  hooked  up  to  the  axle.  Clearly, 
the  time  had  come  for  more  ambitious  demands. 
It  the  technique  that  had  been  hitherto  followed  was 

adequate,  then  something  must  be  done  to  apply  it 

56 


SLOW   PROGRESS  57 

more  vigorously.  It  was  not  at  all  that  there  was 
inefficiency,  or  that  anything  was  out  of  gear.  Staff 
and  organization  were  working  wholeheartedly 
and  devotedly,  but  it  was  a  structure  that  had  been 
devised  to  meet  the  emergencies  of  a  brief  war  with 
proportionately  moderate  needs.  The  war  had  de- 
veloped into  one  of  the  longest  in  modern  times. 
Therefore  an  altogether  new  model  of  relief  ma- 
chinery must  be  invented  and  set  in  operation  to 
cope  with  the  unforeseen  state  of  affairs. 

It  was  to  discuss  this  question  that  the  little  meet- 
ing which  was  held  immediately  following  the 
resignation  of  Mr.  Bressler,  heretofore  the  director 
of  the  organization,  was  called.  The  gathering  was 
quietly  brought  together  on  a  memorable  Sunday 
in  December,  and  its  deliberations  were  attended  by 
a  few  men  whom  I  should  estimate  as  the  intellect 
of  the  movement  and  whose  names  I  therefore  shall 
desist  from  mentioning.  It  was  agreed  before  the 
discussion  had  progressed  very  far  that  two  dis- 
tinct and  separate  problems  must  be  solved  if  the 
projected  new  machinery  was  to  be  set  in  motion 
and  kept  going.  The  first  of  these  was  the  injection 
of  new  blood  into  the  organism.  A  man  must  be 
found  somewhere  who  had  latent  genius  rather  than 
vast  experience.  Vast  experience,  indeed,  it  was 
realized,  might  be  a  handicap.  The  business  of 
collecting  money  had  a  tendency  to  smother  the 


58  THE    JEW    PAYS 

energy  that  propelled  it.  The  qualifications,  there- 
fore, of  the  new  motive  mind  were  few  and  simple 
as  compared  with  the  weaknesses  that  might  dis- 
qualify it.  The  new  relief  engineer — for  that  is 
a  precise  description  of  what  the  new  director  ought 
to  measure  up  to — must  be  simply  a  young  man 
with  inexhaustible  energy  and  resourcefulness,  and 
be  equipped  with  a  sense  of  artistic  reserve.  What 
he  must  not  be,  was  a  whole  chain  of  things.  He 
must  not  be  known  too  well,  he  must  not  be  too 
experienced,  he  must  not  be  a  business  man.  Cer- 
tainly, he  must  not  be  an  advertising  man  or  a  pro- 
fessional moneygatherer.  In  a  word,  he  must  not 
be  stale.  He  must  come  to  his  task  fresh  and  en- 
thusiastic and  unhampered. 

Such  was  the  mold  into  which  the  new  director 
must  fit.  The  practical  problem  was  to  discover 
somewhere,  somehow,  such  a  paragon.  It  was 
remarked  v/ith  a  twinkle  by  one  of  the  conferees 
that  the  social  service  profession  was  not  given 
to  breeding  paragons.  A  who  is  who  was  drawn 
up  of  all  the  philanthropic  experts  in  the  land  that 
could  be  thought  of,  and  an  inquisition  into  their 
past  records,  their  present  status  and  their  future 
possibilities  was  instituted.  As  they  passed  in  re- 
view, each  was  weighed  in  tlie  balance  and  his 
measure  minutely  taken.  But  the  majority  of  those 
who  promised  to  qualify  were  found  to  be  already 


SLOW    PROGRESS  59 

engaged  in  some  indispensable  task;  and  the  rest 
were  found  wanting  in  one  direction  or  another. 
The  field  of  choice  was  thus  extremely  limited  and 
kept  narrowing  down  further  and  further  until  but 
two  candidates  remained.  One  of  these  was  a  Mr. 
Jacob  Billikopf,  the  director  of  Jewish  communal 
activities  in  Kansas  City.  It  was  decided  that  he 
should  be  requisitioned. 

Mr.  Billikopf  had  given  evidence  of  his  ability 
to  meet  the  emergency,  of  very  striking  promise. 
It  was  not  so  much  the  positive  achievement  in  his 
career  that  was  reassuring  as  the  type  of  thing  to 
which  he  had  inclined.  There  was  a  quality  about 
the  tasks  he  had  carried  dirough  quite  out  of  the 
usual.  He  had  evinced  a  capacity  for  meeting  the 
greatest  assortment  of  men  and  women  on  their 
own  ground.  Professionally  the  manager  of  a 
philanthropy,  he  had  gone  far  afield  in  community 
enterprises  which  had  no  sort  of  relation  with  char- 
itable institutions.  Scarcely  known  outside  his 
own  city,  or  at  best,  his  own  state,  he  had  by  sheer 
personality  attained  a  vast  friendship  among  the 
leaders  in  his  community.  Neither  had  he  con- 
fined himself  primarily  to  Jewish  enterprises.  He 
had  made  himself  one  of  the  most  valuable  men  in 
that  great  undertaking  known  as  the  Galveston 
Movement  the  purpose  of  which  had  been  to  de- 
flect the  current  of  Jewish  immigration  from  the 


60  THE    JEW    PAYS 

Atlantic  seaboard  to  the  interior.  He  had  been  the 
prime  mover,  along  with  Mr.  Frank  P.  Walsh,  in 
establishing  the  Board  of  Public  Welfare — a  splen- 
did statesmanlike  enterprise — which,  largely 
through  the  impetus  he  gave  it,  had  in  a  very  brief 
time  developed  into  a  national  project.  Person- 
ality and  tact  and  an  endurance  which  knew 
scarcely  any  bounds  were  the  principal  qualities 
of  the  director  of  the  Jewish  philanthropies  of 
Kansas  City;  they  happened  also  to  be  the  principal 
qualifications  of  the  prospective  new  engineer  of 
the  American  Jewish  Relief  Committee.  It  was 
determined  to  telegraph  for  Mr.  Billikopf. 

But  of  him  we  shall  see  more  anon  and  we  shall 
be  able  to  judge  him  dynamically.  Meantime  the 
select  gathering  which  determined  upon  calling  him 
was  confronted  with  another  problem.  Even  a 
latent  prodigy  could  not  be  expected  to  attain  the 
results  which  conditions  overseas  demanded  unless 
he  were  to  have  the  cooperation  of  a  constituency 
alive  to  its  responsibility.  The  new  director,  as- 
suming that  he  could  be  got,  could  well  be  relied 
on  to  rouse  his  constituency  to  any  desired  plane  of 
enthusiasm.  None  the  less,  much  time  might  be 
saved  and  no  end  of  misery  be  forestalled  if  the 
ground  could  be  somewhat  prepared  in  advance 
of  his  arrival.  What  seemed  to  be  the  fundamen- 
tal need  of  the  moment  in  the  opinion  of  the  meet- 


SLOW   PROGRESS  61 

ing  was  the  dramatization  of  the  movement  in  such 
a  manner  that  it  would  transform  the  potential 
spirit  of  the  American  Jewish  community  into 
something  positive  and  kinetic.  Events  abroad 
were,  to  be  sure,  all  too  stirring,  but  the  experi- 
ences of  the  past  three  years  had  proven  that  the 
impulse  of  generosity  will  carry  vastly  farther  if 
it  is  motivated  by  home  influences.  The  tale  of 
suff"ering  in  distant  countries,  if  too  often  repeated, 
will  in  time  pall  and  steadily  weaken  in  emotional 
quality;  but  it  will  be  found  by  actual  test  that  a 
man's  generosity  will  multiply  itself  endlessly  if 
it  is  carefully  stimulated  to  emulation.  This  is  no 
reflection  upon  the  quality  of  mercy;  it  is  only  a 
statement  of  fact  in  human  psychology. 

The  usual  array  of  schemes  and  suggestions  were 
laid  before  the  house.  But  they  had  all  been 
tried.  The  great  publicity  campaigns;  gigantic, 
stormy  mass  meetings;  new  variations  in  the  style 
of  appeal — everything  had  become  stale.  It  was 
decided  to  wait  until  the  new  director  arrived. 
He  arrived,  after  much  persuading  and  telegraph- 
ing, in  the  middle  of  February.  Thereupon  the 
caucus  that  had  elected  him  was  reconvened.  Mr. 
Billikopf  was  asked  what  the  approaching  cam- 
paign ought  to  yield.  He  replied  with  an  ulti- 
matum: "I  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  it  if  the 
quota  for  the  country  is  below  ten  millions."     The 


62  THEJEWPAYS 

conference  was  a  bit  taken  aback.  It  had  been  a 
struggle  the  year  before  to  raise  half  that  amount, 
and  this  year  of  all  years,  with  America  herself 
about  to  enter  the  war,  and  new  demands  being 
constantly  made  upon  the  popular  purse,  it  seemed 
impossible.  Again,  the  dramatization  of  the  cause 
was  broached.  Some  one  had  an  inspiration. 
What  was  needed,  he  argued,  was  not  so  much 
propaganda  or  publicity,  but  some  great  startling 
event  here  at  home  that  would  leaven  the  half-inert 
Jewry  of  America  and  set  its  spirit  seething  with 
a  vivid  realization  of  its  duty  and  its  opportunity. 
If  only  some  leader  of  sufficient  means  could  be 
persuaded  to  leap  over  the  traditional  bounds 
of  generosity  and  set  some  new,  some  unpre- 
cedented mark.  A  million  dollars — just  one 
single  donation  of  that  round  fancy-gripping  fig- 
ure— if  that  could  be  flashed  over  the  country,  it 
would  amount  to  a  break  with  the  past  and  be  a 
new  departure  in  giving.  It  would  be  the  needed 
beginning  toward  making  the  effort  commensurate 
with  the  emergency. 

It  required  no  long  discussion,  no  turning  over 
of  long  lists  of  names,  to  decide  on  a  candidate  for 
this  unique  role.  The  roster  of  wealthy  men  was, 
to  be  sure,  considerable,  and  the  proportion  of  them 
who  had  established  a  record  for  magnificent  sup- 
port in  charitable  causes  was  above  the  common 


SLOW    PROGRESS  63 

ratio.  For  all  that,  the  latitude  of  probabilities 
was  narrowly  limited.  For  so  unconventional  a 
part  it  required  a  mind  gifted  with  more  imagina- 
tion than  customarily  fell  to  the  share  of  million- 
aires. The  man  would  have  to  think  about  phi- 
lanthropy in  the  same  large  terms  as  he  was  wont 
to  deal  in  in  his  business.  And  such  as  he — if  they 
grew  anywhere — were  most  likely  to  thrive  and 
develop  in  that  spacious  region  which  is,  of  all 
parts  of  the  country,  the  most  characteristic — the 
Central  West — where  America  is  still  youthful  and 
brimful  of  her  early  aspirations  and  enthusiasm. 
In  the  East  demands  upon  the  generous  were  con- 
stant, multitudinous  and  exacting.  The  West  was 
still  young  and  self-reliant  enough  to  leave  the 
charitably  disposed  without  too  burdensome  a  field 
for  their  impulses  in  their  own  communities.  But 
for  purposes  of  benevolence  the  Central  West  meant 
Chicago,  and  Chicago  meant  but  one  man.  That 
man  was  Julius  Rosenwald.  Both  by  quality  of 
imagination  and  susceptibility  to  the  appeal  of  mis- 
fortune, the  record  of  the  man  left  him  solitary  in 
the  field. 

Remembering  his  splendid  work  at  the  great  Car- 
negie Hall  meeting  of  two  years  before,  it  was 
suggested  that  Dr.  J.  L.  Magnes  should  carry  the 
message  to  Garcia.  The  committee  regarded  him 
as  the  master  worker  in  stirring  the  mind  and  the 


64  THEJEWPAYS 

emotions.  No  one  had  any  inkling  at  the  moment 
that  an  intimate  and  gentle  agent  had  already  been 
at  work  to  prepare  Mr.  Rosenwald  for  the  part  just 
assigned  him.  At  any  rate,  Mr.  Magnes  begged 
exemption  on  the  plea  that  he  was  unequal  to  the 
undertaking.  He  nominated  in  his  stead  Mr.  Billi- 
kopf,  the  newly  arrived  director.  Mr.  Billikopf, 
an  old  friend  of  Mr.  Rosenwald's,  reluctantly  and 
with  misgiving  accepted  the  task. 


CHAPTER   VII 

THE  PHILANTHROPY  OF  THE  MASSES 

AT  this  point  I  must  pause  to  narrate  the 
origins  of  the  third  and  last  of  the  Com- 
mittees. If  the  American  and  Central  Committees 
were  dramatic  in  their  origin  and  career,  the  rise 
a  year  after  the  outbreak  of  the  war  of  a  third 
organization  in  the  field,  was  hardly  short  of 
spectacular.  The  elements  constituting  the  former 
organization  were  the  traditional  mainstays  of  char- 
ity. The  membership  of  the  latter  were,  if  not  giv- 
ers of  long  standing,  at  least  firm  believers  in  the 
theory  of  benevolence.  The  seventy-five  people  on 
the  other  hand  who  congregated  on  the  east-side 
one  day  in  August,  1915,  to  institute  the  People's 
Relief  Committee  were  the  very  leaders  and  formu- 
lators  of  the  doctrine  that  all  philanthropy  is  an 
irrelevance  and  an  impertinence.  Surely  there  was 
something  striking  and  characteristic  of  the  times 
that  labor  union  officials,  former  socialist  candi- 
dates, and  radicals  and  semi-radicals  of  every  stripe 
and  shade  should  be  themselves  instrumental  in  the 
formation   of  a   charitable   society.     In   ordinary 

65 


66  THE    JEW    PAYS 

times  these  men  had  more  than  once  led  assaults 
upon  the  institutions  of  benevolence  in  their  midst 
and  had  even  gone  so  far  as  to  discredit  the  motives 
of  their  supporters.  All  philanthropy,  they  had 
preached,  was  a  screen  devised  by  capitalists  to 
mask  their  depredations  and  to  salve  their  con- 
sciences. It  was  an  instrument  for  misguiding  the 
poor  by  blinding  them  to  the  causes  of  their  pov- 
erty and  inspiring  them  with  a  sense  of  gratitude 
toward  their  despoilers.  It  was  a  wedge  in  the 
solidarity  of  the  proletariat  designed  to  retard  the 
triumph  of  the  fullest  democracy. 

But  these  were  not  ordinary  times.  Therefore, 
contrary  to  the  common  belief  diat  radicals  are 
sticklers  for  theory,  these  leaders  of  labor  faced 
reality  with  practical  sense.  Millions  of  women  and 
children  were  perishing  from  hunger  and  exposure. 
Whoever  might  be  at  fault;  whatever  the  sinister 
forces  might  be  that  were  responsible  for  this  vast 
misery,  the  first  thought  for  sane  men  must  be  to 
devise  methods  for  ameliorating  it.  Doctrinally, 
indeed,  every  attempt  at  relief  might  be  a  way  of 
playing  into  the  hands  of  the  war-makers.  But 
this  was  no  time  for  doctrine.  This  was  hardly 
in  the  category  of  usual  benevolence.  While  whole 
peoples  were  being  starved  and  tormented  one 
could  not  sit  back  philosophically  and  wait  for  the 
victims  to  trace  the  origin  of  their  sorrows  in  the 


THE    MASSES  67 

hope  that  tliey  might  swell  the  ranks  of  the  dis- 
contented with  the  present  order  of  things.  The 
immediate  concern  was  inevitably  to  lighten  as  far 
as  one  could  the  burden  of  the  sufferers;  and  for 
men  with  open  eyes  the  immediate  concern  ex- 
cluded for  the  time  every  other  thought. 

Nevertheless  a  residue  of  the  old  distrust  re- 
mained. The  class-conscious  working  man  could 
not  even  in  these  times  be  got  effectively  to  join 
hands  with  banker  and  bourgeois  in  the  promotion 
of  a  cause  which  he  felt  to  be  principally  his  own. 
The  existing  commmittees  representing  the  inde- 
pendent classes  had  on  their  part  given  scant  at- 
tention since  their  organization  to  the  possible  con- 
tributions of  the  labor  masses ;  while  the  worker,  on 
the  other  hand,  found  it  difficult  to  respond  as  gen- 
erously as  he  felt  to  appeals  emanating  from 
sources  not  representative  of  his  class.  It  be- 
came evident  that  if  the  contributions  (insignificant 
individually  but  enonnous  in  the  aggregate)  of  this 
element  were  not  to  be  lost,  a  committee  of  their 
own  ranks  was  urgently  needed.  Such  a  group 
would  be  in  the  closest  contact  with  the  rank  and 
file  in  the  factory  and  in  their  homes ;  it  would  know 
their  minds  and  theiT-  means  and  would  have  their 
confidence  and  their  hearty  cooperation.  Such  a 
committee  could  not  only  add  very  considerable 
sums  to  the  common  treasury  but,  like  its  sister 


68  THEJEWPAYS 

organizations,  it  was  bound  to  have  immeasurable 
influence  in  developing  a  spirit  of  responsibility 
among  the  masses  of  Jewry  which  would  be  of  in- 
calculable value  in  the  future. 

From  the  purely  democratic  point  of  view  this 
new  organization  is  in  my  estimation  by  far  the 
most  interesting  that  has  come  out  of  the  European 
war  in  this  country.  A  mere  glance  at  the  names 
of  the  men  and  women  who  sit  on  its  directorate 
leaves  no  doubt  of  its  thoroughly  representative 
character.  The  Central  and  the  American  Com- 
mittees are  largely  self-constituted.  They  are  rep- 
resentative, to  be  sure,  in  the  sense  of  general 
leadership  and  influence.  The  People's  Relief 
Committee  is  a  sanhedrin  of  the  elected  spokes- 
men of  the  great  mass  of  laboring  Jews  in  the 
United  States.  All  the  great  industries  in  which 
Jewish  workmen  are  engaged,  all  the  distinctive 
social  and  political  and  educational  bodies  of  Jew- 
ish workmen,  have  contributed  to  its  membership. 
There  is  scarcely  a  significant  figure  identified  with 
labor  or  the  political-economic  movements  which 
supplement  labor,  but  has  its  representative  on  the 
Committee.  There  is  a  liberal  air  about  the  entire 
conduct  of  the  organization — its  method  of  appeal, 
its  machinery  of  collection  and  the  very  atmosphere 
of  its  office — which  renders  it  unique  among  be- 
nevolent societies. 


THE    MASSES  69 

It  has  not  been  as  simple  a  matter  as  it  may  seem 
to  draw  the  line  always  between  the  constituencies 
of  this  new  organization  and  the  Central  Relief 
Committee.  Broadly  speaking,  the  one  represents 
the  intellectually  emancipated  mass  while  the  other 
finds  its  support  among  the  adherents  of  the  old 
faith;  one  may  be  said  to  be  the  spokesman  of 
the  younger  generation  and  the  other  of  their  con- 
servative elders.  But  in  another  sense  the  line  of 
demarkation  follows  the  classification  of  labor  and 
the  so-called  non-productive  classes.  The  conse- 
quence is  that  boundaries  are  often  impossible  to 
draw.  Station  in  life  does  not  invariably  go  hand 
in  hand  with  a  class  attitude  in  politics.  Not  all 
workers  shun  the  synagogue  and  vote  the  Socialist 
ticket.  There  are  doubtless  thousands  of  humble 
factory  hands  who  are  spiritually  of  the  same 
temper  as  their  employers  but  who  by  the  sheer 
circumstance  of  occupation  put  their  monthly  dol- 
lar into  the  treasury  of  the  People's  Relief  Com- 
mittee. Thus  it  happens,  for  instance,  that  an  or- 
ganization made  up  in  the  main  of  men  remote 
from  the  ancient  faith  and  its  practices,  finds  it 
politic  to  keep  its  doors  closed  on  the  Sabbath. 

The  manager  of  the  Committee's  office  relates 
the  following  incident  which,  aside  from  its  fine 
pathos,  illustrates  how  confusingly  class  and  sect 
lines  criss-cross  each  other  in  the  ghetto; 


70  THEJEWPAYS 

"On  Saturdays  and  holidays,  though  the  office  is 
closed,  I  frequently  come  in  to  read  the  mail.  I 
have  to  do  that  because  some  of  the  most  urgent 
matters  often  present  themselves  on  such  days. 
Not  long  ago  I  was  at  my  desk  on  a  Saturday  morn- 
ing when  two  men,  taking  advantage  of  my  negli- 
gence to  lock  the  door,  walked  in.  The  more  eld- 
erly of  the  two  promptly  began  to  abuse  me  for 
being  at  work  on  the  day  of  rest.  I  kept  telling 
him  that  the  office  was  not  really  open  for  its  usual 
business;  but  to  no  purpose.  Then  it  occurred  to 
me  to  remind  my  critic  that  the  very  Talmud  itself 
made  exceptions  in  the  observance  of  the  Sabbath 
in  the  case  of  physicians  and  all  emergencies  where 
life  and  health  are  involved.  'Our  people,'  I  said, 
'are  starving  and  suffering  by  the  thousands  in 
Europe,  and  even  if  I  were  working  here  on  their 
behalf  on  this  day,  as  I  do  on  all  others,  I  should 
hardly  be  transgressing.'  This  avenue  of  attack 
seemed  to  prove  effective.  Whereupon  I  pro- 
ceeded to  read  my  visitors  the  cable  message  which 
had  just  arrived  from  one  of  our  commissioners 
abroad:  'The  famished  had  been  keeping  their 
bodies  and  souls  together  upon  a  diet  of  rats  and 
mice.  The  result  was  that  the  price  of  even  this 
article  of  food  rose  to  impossible  heights.  In 
Riga  people  are  paying  as  much  as  four  roubles  for 
a  rat,  and  now  the  supply  is  vanishing.     The  rats 


THE    MASSE  S  71 

and  mice  are  all  cleaned  out.     Prominent  men  and 
women,  one  time  the  wealthiest  in  the  city,  may  be 
daily    seen    rummaging    in    garbage    stations    for 
scraps  of  bone  to  make  soup  for  their  children.' 
I  had  barely  finished  reading  when  I  observed  that 
my  visitors  were  in  tears.     After  a  moment  the  old 
man   who  had  complained   of  my  breach  of  the 
Sabbath   began   nervously   to   search  his   pockets. 
Then  in  a  despairing  and  broken  voice  he  turned  to 
me:     'I  have  now  been  on  strike  for  ten  weeks,  so 
I  haven't  any  money.     But  can  you  make  any  use 
of  this  overcoat?'     He  began  to  take  it  off.     'It 
isn't  much,  but  it's  the  best  I've  got  and  I  can  do 
without  it.     Oh,  if  I  only  could  go  there  myself  to 
throw  it  upon  one  of  the  living  corpses  over  there! 
Please  forgive   me   for  my   bigotry.     There's  no 
nobler  work  in  the  eyes  of  Heaven  than  this.     Sick 
men  may  eat  even  on  Yom  Kippur;  so  why  should 
I  question  the  righteousness  of  your  doing  for  oth- 
ers what  you  would  have  to  be  doing  for  me  if  I 
hadn't  been  lucky  enough  to  be  here?'     He  left 
his  overcoat  on  my  desk  and  I  heard  him  sobbing 
as  he  disappeared." 

As  far  as  New  York  and  other  great  industrial 
towns  are  concerned  the  People's  Relief  Commit- 
tee works  largely  and  very  effectively  through  the 
trade  unions  and  the  social  organizations  of  labor. 
Workingmen,    it    has    been    found,    respond    with 


72  THEJEWPAYS 

greater  readiness  to  appeals  when  they  are  made 
to  them  by  their  own  elected  and  trusted  leaders. 
The  actual  collecting  is  carried  on  in  a  variety  of 
ways.  In  the  majority  of  instances  the  worker 
pledges  himself  to  donate  a  set  amount  weekly  or 
annually.  Often,  as  in  tlie  past  two  years,  the 
men  and  women  of  the  factories  have  volunteered 
to  work  on  certain  holidays  and  to  devote  the  entire 
proceeds  of  their  toil  to  the  cause.  Now  and  then 
in  the  course  of  campaigns  collections  are  made 
directly  in  the  shops.  A  very  considerable  por- 
tion of  the  contributions  of  this  Committee  have 
come  from  immensely  successful  bazaars  and  pub- 
lic entertainments — traditional  methods  which  are 
dear  to  the  hearts  of  the  rank  and  file.  The  first 
of  the  bazaars,  for  instance,  netted  close  to  one-half 
million  dollars  and  generated  more  enthusiasm 
among  the  Yiddish  speaking  masses  than  any  de- 
vice that  has  been  tried  since.  In  December,  1915, 
a  day  was  set  aside  by  the  People's  Relief  Com- 
mittee for  street  solicitations.  The  occasion  was 
made  notable  by  the  enthusiasm  and  devotion  of 
the  large  number  of  young  men  and  young  women 
who  had  been  assigned  to  posts  in  the  city  of  New 
York.  It  was  an  atrociously  dreary  day.  From 
early  dawn  the  skies  were  overcast  and  leaden  and 
the  air  was  damp  and  penetrating.  Soon  after  the 
solicitors  had  arrived  at  their  places  the  rain  be- 


THE    MASSES  73 

gan  to  come  down  in  buckets.  Following  a  hurried 
consultation  in  the  office  an  order  was  issued  to 
call  in  the  volunteers.  But  these  young  men  and 
women  were  a  determined  lot.  They  had  been  de- 
tailed to  a  post  of  urgent  duty  and  they  had  no 
intention  to  be  swerved  from  accomplishing  their 
task  by  such  trifles  as  evil  weather.  They  unan- 
imously met  the  request  to  disband  with  a  resolute 
declaration  that  they  were  there  to  stick.  They  did 
stick.  And  at  the  end  of  the  day  they  had  the 
satisfaction  of  turning  some  fifty  thousand  dollars 
of  hard  cash  into  the  coffers  of  the  People's  Relief 
Committee. 

But  the  People's  Relief  Committee  extends  its 
activities  far  beyond  the  industrial  cities  of  the 
Eastern  seaboard.  Its  branches  and  sub-committees 
operate  in  communities  numbering  no  less  than  one 
hundred  and  fifteen  municipalities  scattered  over 
three-quarters  of  the  states  of  the  Union.  In  these 
distant  localities  it  is  customary  for  the  workmen's 
committee  to  work  hand  in  hand  with  the  local 
representatives  of  the  Central  and  the  American 
bodies.  But  everywhere  their  identity  remains 
separate  and  distinguishes  itself  by  its  constituency, 
by  its  methods  and  by  its  fine  spirit  of  generous 
helpfulness.  It  is  a  safe  surmise  that  proportion- 
ately to  income  no  element  of  Jewry  in  this  country 
does  its  duty  by  the  sufferers  aboard  more  com- 


74  THE    JEW    PAYS 

pletely  and  at  a  cost  of  a  more  genuine  sacrifice 
than  they.  This  is  the  first  time  in  history  that  the 
Jewish  labor  masses  have  had  an  opportunity  to 
give  substantial  evidence  of  the  love  that  is  in  them 
for  their  fellows.  They  have  responded  to  their 
opportunity  with  a  nobility  and  an  open-handedness 
which  is  incomprehensible  and  which  cannot  be  for- 
gotten. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

THE  DRAMATIC  BEGINNING 

TO  return  to  the  main  currents,  the  account  of 
Mr.  Billikopf's  trip  to  Washington  in  search 
of  Mr.  Rosenwald  to  deliver  his  bold  message  may 
be  best  narrated  in  Mr.  Billikopf's  own  words: 

You  may  judge  of  the  humor  in  which  I  set  out 
on  my  mission  if  you  will  remember  that  I  had 
seen  Mr.  Rosenwald  only  a  few  days  before  in 
Chicago  on  my  way  to  New  York.  We  have  been 
friends  for  many  years  and  I  had,  as  usually,  paid 
a  visit  to  his  home.  He  knew  of  course  of  the 
call  I  had  received  from  the  American  Jewish  Re- 
lief Committee.  He  was  not  very  optimistic  about 
it.  I  believe  he  had  a  moderately  good  opinion  of 
my  ability — in  fact  a  much  better  one  than  I  could 
live  up  to.  But  he  could  not,  he  insisted,  conceive 
of  me  in  my  new  post.  "What,"  he  kept  reiterat- 
ing, "have  you  got  to  do  with  fund-collecting? 
You  are  a  social  worker.  You  are  even,  if  you 
like,  a  diplomat,  a  statesman.  But  money  raising 
is  a  profession  in  itself  and  you  do  not  belong  in 
it."  He  shrugged  his  shoulders  doubtfully  and 
added:  "Still,  the  people  in  New  York  have 
chosen  you  and  you  are  on  your  way,  so  here's  my 

blessing.     But  I  would  not  have  advised  calling 

75 


76  THEJEWPAYS 

you  if  I  had  been  taken  into  their  counsels."  And 
here  I  was  on  my  way  to  try  the  abilities  which  he 
thought  were  not  in  me,  on  him  for  a  starter.  I 
was  not  over-sanguine. 

To  add  to  my  depression  it  was  a  wild  night. 
The  rain  and  sleet  were  beating  mournfully  against 
the  window  of  my  berth.  The  train  was  packed 
with  a  vociferous  throng  of  ward  heelers  and 
office  seekers  in  factitious  holiday  mood.  It  was 
the  night  of  the  3rd  of  March.  On  the  morrow 
President  Wilson  was  to  be  reinaugurated.  And 
the  gay  scene  with  its  laughter,  its  imitation  good 
fellowship  and  its  heavy  clouds  of  tobacco  smoke 
was  almost  insupportable.  If  only  my  quarry  had 
been  in  his  customary  haunts  so  that  the  familiar 
scene  might  restore  my  ease  and  composure! 
But  he  too  was  at  the  seat  of  Government.  It 
would  be  a  crowded  day  for  him.  I  had  grave 
questionings  in  my  heart  as  to  whether  I  could  even 
catch  a  glimpse  of  him.  Affairs  in  New  York 
were  so  situated  that  I  must  return  by  the  midnight 
train  on  the  day  following.  Mr.  Rosenwald  was 
not  only  one  of  the  busiest  members  of  the  Council 
of  National  Defense,  he  was  personally  somewhat 
close  to  the  President,  and  to-morrow  was  a  great 
day  in  official  Washington.  Heaven  alone  knew 
whether,  for  all  his  usual  generous  leanings,  he 
would  be  in  a  mood  to  listen  to  my  horror-monger- 
ing  anent  the  Jews  of  Eastern  Europe. 

But  the  fate  of  six  millions  of  people  in  the 
shambles  of  the  Eastern  war-zone  depended  on  the 
success  of  my  mission.     My  first  campaign  was 


THE    BEGINNING  77 

doomed  in  advance  unless  I  brought  back  what  I 
had  been  sent  for.  There  was  no  other  way.  Mr. 
Rosenwald  was  the  only  reliance  of  the  Committee. 
If  I  allowed  my  discouragement  to  affect  me  and 
he  failed  us,  all  our  plans  would  be  headed  for  the 
rocks.  All  through  the  night  I  kept  rehearsing  the 
speech  I  was  to  make  to  him.  I  doubt  whether  I 
closed  an  eye  all  the  way  from  New  York  to  Wash- 
ington. I  sketched  a  most  gloomy  picture  of  the 
state  of  things  abroad,  drawing  largely  on  my  over- 
wrought imagination  and  on  a  printed  copy  of  Dr. 
Magnes's  Carnegie  Hall  address.  And  I  lay  in  bed 
repeating  it  silently  until  I  knew  it  by  rote  and  was 
almost  in  tears  over  its  tragic  details  myself.  As 
my  train  pulled  into  the  Union  Station  I  was 
crowding  the  porter  off  the  car  steps  and  I  was  the 
first  to  issue  upon  tlie  street. 

Arriving  at  the  Willard  Hotel  I  made  for  the 
Rosenwald  suite.  I  was  received  with  the  usual 
cordial  hospitality.  I  was  asked  to  join  the  family 
at  breakfast,  but  this  was  no  occasion  for  broaching 
my  project.  There  were  one  or  two  other  guests 
with  us  at  the  table.  I  did  however,  manage  to 
convey  to  my  host  that  I  had  something  of  im- 
portance to  talk  about  to  him  and  he  assured  me 
that  he  would  make  time  for  the  purpose  late  in 
the  evening.  The  major  part  of  the  time  during 
the  meal  was  given  over  to  small  talk  about  the 
forthcoming  celebration.  Mr.  Rosenwald  insisted 
on  getting  me  tickets  for  the  inaugural  celebration. 
1  saw  him  again  when  he  returned  to  dress  for  an 
official  dinner,  only  for  a  moment. 


78  THEJEWPAYS 

For  the  remainder  of  the  day  I  was  left  with 
nothing  to  do  but  to  contemplate  the  trying  business 
that  was  ahead  of  me.     A  friend  in  whom  I  con- 
fided the  object  of  my  visit  succeeded  in  reducing 
still  further  the  little  self-possession  that  was  left 
me.     He  thought  the  whole  mission  absurd  and 
fantastic.     Happily  I  had  the  good  judgment  later 
in  the  day  to  take  Mrs.  Rosenwald  into  my  con- 
fidence.    She  listened  to  my  recital  with  a  quizzi- 
cal smile,  never  interrupting  me,  and  when  I  had 
finished   she   said   quietly:     "It  is,   I   confess,   a 
rather  ambitious   mission  you  are   on;   I  suspect 
Mr.  Rosenwald  will  throw  you  out  of  the  window 
when   you   broach    it   to   him."     Involuntarily   I 
glanced  down  on  the  pavement  below.     "It  is  not 
very  serious,"  I  said  with  a  forced  smile.    "It  won't 
be  so  much  of  a  fall."     We  talked  about  other 
things,  or  rather  I  should  say  Mrs.  Rosenwald  did. 
She  took  considerable  delight  in  mocking  my  brood- 
ing seriousness;  all  of  which  was  exceedingly  for- 
tunate for  me,   or  the   suspense  and   uncertainty 
might  have  unnerved  me  altogether.     Her  excellent 
good  humor  and  kindliness  and  her  efficient  manner 
of  keeping  my  mind  off  my  preoccupations  saved 
the  day. 

I  joined  the  family  again  at  dinner — the  family, 
that  is  to  say,  without  the  parents.  Then  the  little 
party  disbanded  and  for  the  remainder  of  the  even- 
ing I  had  my  task  cut  out  for  me  in  pacing  the 
lobbies  of  the  Willard  Hotel. 

It  was  getting  late  and  I  dared  not  leave  my 
post  lest  he  should  appear  while  I  was  gone  and 


THE    BEGINNING  79 

retire  to  his  suite  before  I  returned.  For  the  first 
time  in  my  career  I  had  a  taste  of  a  detective's  life 
and  I  found  it  unsavory.  Whether  or  not  I  was  to 
succeed  as  a  moneygatherer  the  future  might  tell, 
but  for  the  moment  I  learned  that  man-hunting  was 
distinctly  out  of  my  sphere.  And  in  the  meantime 
the  hour  for  the  last  train  to  New  York  was  drawing 
nearer  and  nearer,  and  far  from  having  achieved 
the  object  of  my  expedition  I  had  not  as  much  as 
met  the  enemy. 

At  11  o'clock,  however,  Mr.  Julius  Rosenwald 
appeared  in  the  company  of  two  senators.  He 
stopped  at  the  hotel  desk  to  ask  for  his  mail  and, 
never  hesitating  an  instant,  I  approached  and 
touched  his  shoulder.  He  hailed  me  cordially  and 
unsuspectingly.  With  his  arm  around  me  he  led 
me  to  where  the  gentlemen  of  the  Senate  were  wait- 
ing for  him  and  proceeded  to  introduce  me  and 
to  tell  them  my  life  history.  One  of  the  legislators 
was  from  my  own  State  of  Missouri;  and  being  a 
friendly  and  talkative  person,  he  fell  into  rem- 
iniscence. Did  I  know  this  one  or  that  one? 
Did  I  recall  the  last  political  battle  between  the 
forces  of  light  and  the  powers  of  darkness  in  Kan- 
sas City?  How  was  Old  So-and-So  getting  on? 
Did  I  say  I  had  been  instrumental  in  floating  that 
magnificent  organization  called  the  Board  of  Public 
Welfare?  Well,  that  was  a  noble  piece  of  work! 
And  all  this  while  I  was  rehearsing  anew  what  I 
was  about  to  say  to  the  man  I  had  been  shadowing 
an  entire  day,  assuming  that  I  could  get  him  alone 
before  train  time.     I  squeezed  Mr.   Rosenwald's 


80  THEJEWPAYS 

arm  significantly  and  whispered  in  his  ear  that 
I  had  something  of  importance  to  convey  to  him. 
He  studied  me  calmly.  "Is  it  very,  very  im- 
portant?" he  asked  lightly,  and  before  I  could  give 
him  my  emphatic  reply  he  bade  our  friends  good- 
night and  drew  me  off  to  a  sofa  in  a  corner  of  the 
lobby. 

"Well,  tell  me  all  about  it,"  he  said  as  soon  as 
we  had  sat  down.  I  glanced  up  at  him  and  my 
entire  harangue  on  which  I  had  spent  so  much  ar- 
duous toil  and  thought  evaporated.  I  heard  my- 
self, to  my  own  great  surprise,  telling  him  in  the 
very  simplest  and  most  unadorned  style  that  a  cam- 
paign for  ten  million  dollars  was  about  to  be 
launched,  that  it  needed  some  powerful  dramatic 
stimulus  to  start  it  off  effectively  and  to  end  it  suc- 
cessfully; that  a  committee  had  determined  that 
nothing  but  a  great  single  gift  would  serve  and  that 
he  alone  could  make  that  gift.  I  dwelt  hardly  at 
all  on  the  state  of  things  abroad,  merely  indicating 
in  a  matter  of  fact  way  what  he  was  well  aware  of, 
that  the  condition  of  the  European  Jews  was  grow- 
ing increasingly  worse,  and  that  therefore  a  re- 
newed effort  on  a  much  greater  scale  than  had  ever 
been  tried  must  be  initiated.  He  listened  to  me 
without  comment  while  my  appeal  was  gathering 
momentum  and  climbing  logically  from  argument 
to  argument  to  a  climax.  I  had  had  hundreds  of 
conversations  with  Mr.  Rosenwald  but  I  had  never 
before  asked  him  for  contributions  of  any  sort,  and 
never  before  had  I  seen  a  face  so  transparent  and 


THE    BEGINNING  81 

serene  and  yet  so  profoundly  thoughtful.  I  kept 
praying,  as  I  talked  along,  that  he  might  not  break 
in.  We  seemed  both  under  the  spell  of  a  common 
great  purpose,  and  I  knew  that  as  long  as  the  spell 
was  not  broken  the  future  of  the  undertaking  was 
assured.  As  I  concluded  with  my  specific  request 
for  a  round  million  the  earnestness  of  his  expres- 
sion deepened.  He  said,  "Do  you  think  it  will  do 
any  good?"  I  nodded  and  was  about  to  make  a 
highly  colored  forecast  of  the  results  of  such  a 
contribution,  when  he  added:  "Very  well,  I  will  do 
it.  You  may  go  back  to  New  York  and  tell  them 
that  I'll  do  it." 

No  one  who  has  known  Julius  Rosenwald  will 
find  any  cause  for  surprise  in  the  manner  in  which 
he  acceded  to  my  suggestion.  It  was  thoroughly  in 
keeping  with  the  modesty,  the  vision  and  the  utter 
selflessness  of  the  man.  I  have  a  very  vivid  pic- 
ture in  my  mind  to  this  moment  of  the  complete 
absence  in  his  manner  and  mien  of  any  thought  of 
vain  reward.  His  quick,  unhesitating  response  had 
in  it  all  the  elements  of  an  instinctive  reaction. 
But  his  reward  came  nevertheless  in  the  great  in- 
centive that  he  gave  to  his  fellows  throughout  the 
country  to  follow  his  example;  and  that,  for  him 
as  for  any  genuinely  generous  heart,  was  reward 
enough.  Not  alone  the  American  Jewish  Commit- 
tee but  the  country  as  a  whole  was  soon  to  feel 
the  impetus  of  his  unparalleled  act.  The  President 
of  the  United  States  at  once  estimated  its  impor- 
tance and  telegraphed  to  him  in  these  words: 


82  THE    JEW    PAYS 

The  White  House,  Washington,  D.  C,  Mar.  28, 
Julius  Rosenwald,  Chicago,  111. 

Your  contribution  of  one  million  dollars  to  the  Ten 
Million  Dollar  Fund  for  the  Relief  of  Jewish  War  Suf- 
ferers serves  democracy  as  well  as  humanity.  The  Rus- 
sian Revolution  has  opened  the  door  of  freedom  to  an 
oppressed  people  but  unless  they  are  given  life  and 
strength  and  courage  the  opportunity  of  centuries  will 
avail  them  little.  It  is  to  America  that  these  starving 
millions  look  for  aid  and  out  of  our  prosperity  fruit 
of  free  institutions  should  spring  a  vast  and  ennobling 
generosity.  Your  gift  lays  an  obligation  even  while 
it  furnishes  inspiration. 

WOODROW  WILSON. 

And  the  President  of  the  American  Jewish  Relief 
Committee  sent  his  acknowledgment  and  appreci- 
ation in  a  letter  which,  as  a  brilliant  sum-up  of  the 
task  of  American  Jewry  and  as  a  forecast  of  the 
good  effects  of  Mr.  Rosenwald's  action,  if  for  no 
other  reason,  should  be  made  a  part  of  this  record: 

My  dear  Mr.  Rosenwald: 

I  take  great  pleasure  in  extending  to  you,  personally 
and  on  behalf  of  the  Committee,  most  cordial  thanks  for 
your  great  goodness  and  generosity.  Your  impressive 
action  cannot  fail  to  be  a  source  of  inspiration  to  every 
right-thinking  man  and  will  undoubtedly  call  into  ac- 
tivity the  latent  energies  of  our  co-religionists  and  arouse 
them  to  a  realizing  sense  of  their  obligation  to  their 
suffering  brethren  in  belligerent  lands.  We  have  needed 
just  such  an  incentive  as  that  which  you  now,  with  char- 


THE    BEGINNING  83 

acteristic  insight  and  modesty,  have  imparted  to  us. 
There  is  nothing  as  contagious  as  a  good  example,  and  I 
am  confident  that  your  initiative  will  induce  hundreds 
who  have  heretofore  been  indifferent,  because  of  a  failure 
to  recognize  the  crying  need  which  exists,  to  give  liber- 
ally to  the  cause,  which  should  enlist  the  sympathy  and 
charity  of  every  man  and  woman  who  has  the  slightest 
regard  for  the  good  name  of  Judaism. 

Your  offer  was  the  first  real  ray  of  sunshine  that  has 
come  to  us  in  these  dark  days.  It  seems,  however,  to 
have  been  the  precursor  of  that  glorious  hope  which  after 
so  many  years  of  anxious  and  prayerful  waiting  has  at 
last  dawned  upon  the  inhabitants  of  Russia,  and  which 
I  firmly  believe  will  prove  a  harbinger  of  universal  lib- 
erty and  in  large  part  lead  to  the  solution  of  the  many 
serious  problems  which  have  in  the  past  confronted 
the  Jewry  of  the  world. 

Be  assured  that  we  shall  do  all  that  lies  in  our  power 
to  earn  the  million  dollars  which  you  are  prepared  to 
give  so  unreservedly,  and  be  further  assured  that  the 
consciousness  of  your  devotion  to  suffering  humanity 
and  to  our  own  people,  who  have  borne  with  so  much 
patience  the  unspeakable  hardships  which  have  befallen 
them,  will  be  an  earnest  of  the  undying  friendship  of 
your  associates  and  of  those  in  whose  hearts  abides  the 
love  of  humanity. 

I  am,  with  sincere  regards 

Yours  faithfully, 

LOUIS   MARSHALL. 

to  which  Mr.  Rosenwald  replied: 


84  THEJEWPAYS 

Hon.  Julius  Rosenwald, 
Chicago,  Illinois. 

March  9,  1917. 
Mr.  Louis  Marshall,  Chairman, 
American  Jewish  Relief  Committee, 
Dear  Mr.  Marshall: 

The  marked  change  for  the  worse  which  has  taken 
place  in  the  condition  of  our  co-religionists  in  belligerent 
lands,  so  graphically  outlined  by  Mr.  Jacob  Billikopf, 
has  impressed  upon  me  most  acutely  the  great  need  of 
raising  immediately  the  fund  which  the  American  Jewish 
Relief  Committee  is  endeavoring  to  collect. 

In  the  hope  that  the  urgency  of  the  situation  will  be 
brought  home  to  the  Jews  of  the  United  States,  I  make 
the  following  offer: 

I  will  donate  to  the  fund  of  the  American  Jewish 

Relief  Committee  an  amount  not  to  exceed  one  million 

dollars  conditioned  as  follows: 

For  every  million  dollars  collected  after  March  1st, 

I  will  contribute  $100,000  but,  in  order  that  results 

may  be  obtained   with  sufficient  rapidity   at  least  in 

some  small  measure  to  meet  the  present  crying  needs, 

I  put  a  time  limitation — until  November  1,   1917 — 

upon  this  offer. 

I  regret  that  conditions  will  not  permit  my  joining 
with  you  and  your  Committee  actively  in  the  raising  of 
these  funds,  sincerely  believing  that  no  greater  crisis  in 
the  history  of  the  world  has  ever  existed,  where  literally 
millions  of  people  are  on  the  verge  of  starvation. 

Trusting  that  the  total  amount  of  ten  million  dollars 
will  soon  be  collected  and  wishing  you  Godspeed  on  your 
noble  errand,  I  am 

Sincerely  yours, 

JULIUS  ROSENWALD. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  CONQUEST  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

THE  effect  of  the  great  contribution  was  enor- 
mously more  profound  than  had  been  ex- 
pected even  by  those  who  had  inspired  it.  It  was 
as  immediate  as  it  was  widespread.  That  it  gen- 
erated a  new  and  increased  energy  in  the  American 
Relief  Committee  goes  without  saying.  That  much 
at  least  had  been  foreseen.  The  newly  devised  ma- 
chinery depended  exclusively  upon  this  impulse  for 
its  effectiveness.  The  additional  stimulus,  wisely 
provided  by  the  conditions  of  the  donation,  served 
an  excellent  purpose.  The  great  campaign  of  1917 
opened  with  a  fanfare.  A  powerful  impetus  had 
been  injected  into  the  hitherto  pedestrian  affairs  of 
the  organization,  and  its  new  leadership  saw  to  it 
that  none  of  its  fruits  should  grow  unharvested. 
The  new  director,  taking  his  cue  from  his  initial 
achievement,  proceeded  to  organize  the  entire  coun- 
try upon  a  scale  and  with  an  intensity  undreamt  of 
in  the  past.  He  had  inherited  the  germ  idea  of 
State  committees.  He  set  about  devoting  the  en- 
tire preliminary  period  of  the  campaign  to  a  prac- 
tical elaboration  and  extension  of  it.     It  is  difficult, 

86 


86  THE    JEW    PAYS 

owing  to  the  vagueness  of  the  records,  to  make  even 
reasonably  certain  as  to  where  the  credit  for  specific 
schemes  of  organization  belongs.  But  it  is  safe,  I 
believe,  to  assert  that  it  was  Mr.  Billikopf's  skill  in 
organization  that  was  responsible  for  the  highly  ef- 
fective State  committees,  as  the  expression  is  now 
understood. 

In  the  past  three  years,  the  State  committee  had 
been  scarcely  more  than  an  aspiration.  Virtually 
all  the  moneys  that  had  been  collected  had  come 
from  the  metropolitan  cities  and  now  and  then  from 
the  larger  towns  of  the  country.  Scores  of  counties 
in  every  State  had  not  been  as  much  as  touched. 
It  requires  time  and  toil  of  the  most  intensive  sort 
to  fine-comb  an  entire  State,  especially  in  the  less 
populated  regions.  And  the  earlier  organization 
had  had  its  hands  more  than  full  in  compassing  the 
mobilization  of  the  larger  centers.  Indeed,  this 
preliminary  work  with  the  cities  provided  the  back- 
bone and  nucleus  for  the  lining-up  of  the  entire 
country.  State  organization  would  have  been  al- 
most unfeasible  without  these  bases.  Mr.  Billi- 
kopf  and  his  staff,  vividly  aware  of  the  value  of 
the  legacy  that  had  come  to  them  from  their  pre- 
decessors, made  the  most  thorough-going  use  of 
their  agencies  in  cities  like  Chicago,  Atlanta,  New 
Orleans  and  San  Francisco.  By  way  of  economiz- 
ing their  resources,  they  enlisted  the  aid  of  city 


THE    CONQUEST  87 

chairmen  everywhere  in  their  efforts  to  extend  the 
organization  into  tlieir  respective  States.  It  was  a 
happy  device  which  the  new  directorate  was  to  use 
repeatedly  and  with  great  effect  in  the  future,  and 
it  marked  the  initial  recognition  of  the  important 
psychological  fact  that  the  indifferent  outsider  of 
yesterday,  having  once  been  recruited,  may  read- 
ily be  turned  into  an  agent  for  the  conversion  of 
those  who  still  remain  outside.  Every  man  who 
was  now  asked  to  undertake  the  organization  of  his 
particular  State  had  perhaps  no  more  than  a  month 
before  offered  vigorous  resistance  to  the  effort  of 
the  Committee  to  associate  him  with  the  work  at 
all.  Now,  however,  he  was  a  part  of  the  establish- 
ment, and  with  the  customary  human  pride  of  or- 
ganization, he  was  ready  to  go  far  beyond  the  lim- 
its of  his  original  intentions  in  rendering  the  work 
as  successful  as  might  be. 

The  net  result  of  this  twofold  endeavor — the  re- 
newed vitality  at  headquarters  and  the  multipli- 
cation of  the  directorate  in  forty-eight  separate  cen- 
ters— was  that  within  very  few  months  a  network 
of  intensely  vigorous  subsidiaries  stretching  from 
coast  to  coast  had  been  effected.  For  the  first  time 
since  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  a  complete  mo- 
bilization of  the  country  had  been  brought  about, 
so  that  from  now  on  collecting  campaigns  could  be 
launched  and  successfully  conducted  from  head- 


88  THEJEWPAYS 

quarters  accessibly  located  and  manned  by  people 
who  were  both  familiar  with  the  financial  and 
psychological  conditions  of  their  sphere  and  who 
were  themselves  influential  and  well-known  to  their 
constituencies.  In  the  majority  of  instances,  the 
erstwhile  chairman  of  the  leading  city  was  trans- 
formed into  the  State  chairman,  and  he  in  turn  was 
invited  to  get  into  touch  with  prominent  men  in 
well-chosen  towns  and  counties  throughout  his 
State  as  a  preliminary  to  the  establishment  of  local 
committees.  The  national  office,  it  goes  without 
saying,  cooperated  intensively.  A  method  had 
been  devised  whereby  the  State  chairman  could 
be  aided  in  the  choice  of  his  lieutenants  by  sup- 
plying him  with  preliminary  data  as  to  the  financial 
qualifications  of  candidates.  The  State  chairman 
himself  could  be  well  relied  on  to  supplement  the 
information  conveyed  to  him  from  New  York,  but 
it  was  of  the  utmost  service  to  him  to  be  presented 
with  a  small  selection  of  names  from  which  he 
might  make  his  ultimate  choice.  The  central 
office  continually  consulted  the  lists  provided  by 
the  financial  agencies  in  determining  the  standing 
in  the  community  of  a  prospective  local  repre- 
sentative. Dun's  and  Bradstreet's  provided  the 
fundamental  basis  of  selection.  The  State  com- 
mittee, starting  from  that  point,  determined  the 


THE    CONQUEST  89 

rest  of  the  necessary  qualifications  of  candidates. 
But  it  was  not  solely  upon  the  Jewish  relief  or- 
ganizations that  the  Rosenwald  contribution  reacted 
with  such  splendid  effect.  A  new  pace  and 
standard  had  been  set  for  benevolence  generally, 
and  men  and  women  of  means  and  generous  im- 
pulses were  moved  to  think  upon  the  problems  of 
both  war  and  internal  philanthropy  in  new  and 
larger  terms.  To  be  sure,  there  had  been  in  the 
past  vast  contributions  of  a  semi-philanthropic 
character,  directed  toward  the  endowment  of 
specific  institutions.  There  had  been  for  many 
years  in  existence  in  America  great  foundations 
which  dealt  in  figures  exceeding  the  Rosenwald 
gift.  Yet  all  such  funds  had  been  contributed 
toward  the  advancement  of  what  are  called  con- 
structive projects.  Clinics  and  universities,  mis- 
sionary bodies  and  establishments  for  the  promo- 
tion of  universal  peace  and  their  like,  had  been 
the  exclusive  beneficiaries  of  these  staggering  for- 
tunes. Never  before,  however,  had  any  mere 
charity  devoted  to  temporary  and  palliative  relief 
been  known  to  scale  such  heights.  The  war  had 
served  to  familiarize  people  with  huge  expendi- 
tures. But  previous  to  March,  1917,  a  hundred 
thousand  dollars  had  been  regarded  as  the  startling 
finality,  even  in  war-giving.     Such  donatione  had 


90  THEJEWPAYS 

themselves  been  of  sufficient  rarity  and  they  there- 
fore never  failed  to  elicit  the  wonderment  and  com- 
mendation of  an  entire  continent. 

Now,  at  one  amazing  leap,  a  revolutionary  de- 
parture had  taken  place.  A  page  in  the  history 
of  philanthropy  had  been  turned  and  a  new  epoch 
begun.  A  reclassification  of  worth  was  imminent. 
The  givers  in  six  digits  found  themselves  overnight 
removed  from  the  pinnacle  of  human  generosity 
and  relegated  to  second  place.  Henceforth,  none 
but  men  and  women  who  could  think  in  terms 
large  enough  to  actually  meet  the  demands  of  a 
changed  order,  could  hope  to  rank  among  the  first 
line  of  world-philanthropists. 

The  impact  was  felt  throughout  the  country  by 
every  variety  of  relief  agency.  Before  the  cam- 
paign of  that  year  had  been  completed  the  United 
States  had  entered  the  war  and  the  numerous  war 
work  associations  which  had  arisen  to  cooperate 
with  the  Government  became  the  inheritors  as  it 
were  of  Mr.  Rosenwald's  imaginative  act.  A 
spirit  of  generous  rivalry  and  emulation  had  been 
created.  Scores  of  men  and  women  in  the  front 
ranks  of  these  philanthropies  took  note  of  the 
altered  atmosphere  and  opened  their  treasuries  in 
accordance  with  the  new  standard  set  for  them. 
It  was  not  merely  a  feeling  that  they  could  not 
afford  to  be  outdone;  they  had  simply  been  orien- 


THE    CONQUEST  91 

tated  anew.  They  were  seeing  their  tasks  and  their 
responsibilities  in  a  fresh  light.  The  angle  of  ap- 
proach to  war  philanthropy  had  been  widened ;  the 
point  of  view  had  been  shifted  to  rarer  elevations. 

The  permanent  peace-time  social  institutions 
likewise  came  in  for  their  share.  It  was  inevitable 
but  that  the  revised  philosophy  of  philanthropy 
should  affect  the  pace  and  tone  of  general  benev- 
olence. Hospitals,  orphanages  and  sanitariums  of 
all  sorts  which  in  times  past  had  had  a  struggle  to 
raise  trifling  sums  for  their  maintenance  found 
themselves  in  a  position  where  huge  endowments 
exceeding  the  best  dreams  of  their  directors  could 
be  secured  almost  overnight  and  with  a  minimum 
of  effort.  The  sympathetic  ducts  of  the  nation  had 
been  touched  and  set  flowing  with  a  liberality  and 
regularity  unknown  before.  Men  and  women — 
and  generous  ones — who  had  hitherto  been  accus- 
tomed to  annual  pittances  in  the  interest  of  a  news- 
boys' club  or  the  like,  began  to  be  stirred  by  a  new 
conscience  and  found  themselves  irritated  by  an 
uncomfortable  sense  of  having  been  unforgivably 
slack. 

The  dramatic  value  of  the  Rosenwald  contribu- 
tion was  turned  to  account  in  a  manner  so  simple 
as  to  suggest  the  attributes  of  genius.  It  will  be 
remembered  that  the  donation  had  been  promised 
on  condition  that  an  aggregate  amount  equal  to 


92  THEJEWPAYS 

nine  times  its  own  size  should  be  raised  in  the 
rest  of  the  country.  In  other  words,  Mr.  Rosen- 
wald's  share  of  the  campaign  receipts  was  to  be 
ten  per  cent  of  the  total,  providing  the  total  was 
not  over  ten  millions.  Taking  this  circumstance 
into  consideration  the  directorate  proceeded  to 
canvass  the  country  for  other  donors  who  might 
be  prepared  to  play  the  same  role  in  their  own  state 
or  community  as  the  Chicago  merchant  had  agreed 
to  play  with  respect  to  the  country  as  a  whole.  The 
device  worked  magically.  Everywhere  in  the 
United  States  "Local  Rosenwalds"  sprang  up 
offering  to  contribute  one-tenth  of  the  aggregate 
contribution  of  their  city,  state  or  section.  This 
development  was  beyond  doubt  the  most  fruitful 
of  all  consequences  of  the  Rosenwald-Billikopf  con- 
spiracy as  far  as  the  immediate  advancement  of 
the  relief  cause  was  concerned.  Without  it,  it  is 
gravely  to  be  questioned  whether  the  most  gripping 
relief  project  ever  undertaken  by  Jews  in  America 
could  have  been  carried  to  success.  It  was  in  a 
performance  crammed  full  of  fancy-stirring  inci- 
dents, far  and  away  the  most  impressive. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  CONDUCT  OF  A  CAMPAIGN 
AN  EXTERIOR  VIEW 

HAD  it  not  been  for  the  circumstance  that  the 
amazing  spectacle  of  fortune-gathering  as 
it  has  been  perfected  in  the  past  two  years  occurred 
in  the  midst  of  the  electric  atmosphere  of  a  world 
at  war,  I  have  no  doubt  but  that  it  would  have  been 
noted  as  one  of  the  most  startling  and  stupendous 
exhibitions  of  organized  popular  effort.  The 
modern  world  has  made  some  very  notable  ad- 
vances on  antiquity  in  the  matter  of  large-scale 
public  performance.  It  has  inherited  and  re- 
adapted  the  ancient  circus,  the  arena  and  the  open 
air  amphitheater  and  it  has  gone  many  an  im- 
pressive step  beyond  this  meager  legacy.  It  has 
invented  and  carried  to  a  high  degree  of  perfec- 
tion the  international  exposition;  it  has  projected 
and  carried  into  the  domain  of  reality  the  national 
park  and  the  national  playground — ^-things  that 
sprawl  over  territories  immense  enough  to  comprise 
an  old-time  empire,  and  draw  multitudes  undreamt 
of  by  ancient  monarchs.     Most  curious  of  all,  it 

has  devised  and  developed  that  most  fantastic  of 

93 


94  THEJEWPAYS 

spectacles  of  modem  times,  the  national  political 
campaign. 

But  in  all  seriousness  there  is  nothing  in  any  of 
these  that  can  even  remotely  rival  the  fund  col- 
lecting campaign  as  it  has  been  developed  in  the 
recent  past.  For  sheer  diversity  of  mechanism, 
for  the  vistas  it  opens  up  into  the  exuberance  of 
human  ingenuity,  for  the  scope  and  depdi  of  its 
bewildering  appeal  to  the  senses  and  the  emotions, 
for  its  startling  utilization  of  the  findings  of  the 
new  science  of  psychology,  and  for  its  purely 
spectacular  quality  it  is  an  entirely  unique  institu- 
tion. 

Consider  the  scene.  Weeks  before  the  opening 
of  the  first  guns  there  commences,  and  impercepti- 
bly develops,  an  intense  barrage  of  carefully  se- 
lected news,  feature  articles  and  pictorial  material. 
The  reading  public  which  had  all  its  adult  life  man- 
aged to  plod  on  in  felicitious  ignorance  of  the  very 
existence  of  Walloons  in  Belgium  or  Uhro-Rusins 
in  Ukrainia  or  Jews  in  Lithuania  is  startled  out  of 
its  indifferent  stupor  with  a  skillfully  graded 
series  of  dramatized  lessons  in  the  history,  ethnic 
antecedents,  present  economic  status  and  racial 
aspirations  of  these  somewhat  vague,  highly  pic- 
turesque and  heroic  peoples.  The  purely  educa- 
tional content  of  this  gratuitous  information  is, 
modestly  speaking,  enormous.     The  Mentor  Asso- 


A    CAMPAIGN  95 

elation  is  by  the  side  of  this  a  mere  tyro.  You 
suddenly  realize  how  your  education  has  been 
falsified  and  skimped.  Glancing  down  the  broad 
avenues  of  culture  that  stretch  majestically  before 
you,  you  become  a  prey  to  regret  and  resent  the 
consummate  frauds  who  called  themselves  your 
teachers  at  school  and  college.  What  do  they 
know  of  art  and  archaeology,  of  literature  and 
geography,  of  history  and  anthropology?  Why, 
here  are  whole  races — to  judge  by  the  accounts,  the 
very  foremost  members  of  the  human  family — with 
records  in  warfare,  in  the  art  of  self-government, 
in  the  skill  for  divine  song,  whose  very  existence 
had  never  even  been  mentioned  to  you  throughout 
your  long  arduous  career  at  college.  Of  course 
your  heart  is  set  vibrating  with  an  uncanny  sym- 
pathy for  these  neglected  portions  of  the  race; 
partly,  no  doubt,  out  of  sense  of  kinship  born  of 
the  realization  that  you  have  yourself  been  care- 
lessly passed  over  when  the  intelligence  about 
them  was  being  generally  imparted.  An  irresistible 
yearning  comes  over  you.  You  see  these  brave, 
stalwart  races.  You  extend  your  fraternal  hand 
to  them  to  share  widi  them  their  noble  lives  and 
worship  communally  with  them  at  their  sacred 
shrines. 

And  then — it  is  curious  how  many  interesting 
things  happen  in  the  places  and  to  the  people  we 


96  THEJEWPAYS 

have  lately  read  about!  Before  you  have  had 
time  to  grasp  the  trend  of  your  own  tender  emotions 
the  tragic  news  is  flashed  across  half  the  world  to 
you,  that  these  very  recent  friends  and  brothers  of 
yours  are  in  a  most  serious  situation.  Their 
venerable  old  men,  their  plucky,  beautiful  women, 
their  tender,  wide-eyed  children  are  being  starved, 
exiled  and  massacred  by  an  unspeakable  and  cruel 
enemy.  Things  look  as  black  as  night.  You,  and 
you  alone  are  the  only  prop  in  their  adversity. 
Irrelevantly  the  reports  of  these  regrettable  inci- 
dents conclude  with  a  query  to  you.  Will  you 
help?  Of  course  you  will.  The  mere  question  is 
a  slight  to  your  generosity. 

This  neat  bit  of  propaganda  is,  as  I  say,  but  a 
curtain  raiser;  the  actual  performance  has  as  yet 
scarcely  begun.  But  the  suspense  is  of  brief  dura- 
tion. Things  begin  to  move  jauntily.  Telegrams 
sail  across  the  wires  "not  single  spy  but  in 
battalions."  Noted  visitors  make  their  appearance 
in  the  city — visitors  curiously  enough  who  have 
been  public  figures  in  American  life  for  a  genera- 
tion, but  who  it  is  suddenly  revealed  are  themselves 
scions  of  the  gallant  unhappy  peoples  in  question. 
The  accustomed  tenor  of  the  community's  life  is 
quickened  and  galvanized.  The  "social" — an  in- 
stitution normally  associated  with  the  effete  centers 
— buds  forth,  blossoms  and  multiplies  in  tropical 


A    CAMPAIGN  97 

luxuriance.  Formal  luncheons  and  still  more 
formal  dinner  parties  crowd  the  calendar.  Public 
halls  are  rented  and  given  over  to  nightly  per- 
formances of  undreamt  magnificence.  There  is 
eloquence  and  histrionic  talent,  bazaars  riotous  in 
their  oriental  profusion  of  color  abound ;  and  all  of 
this  in  the  same  persistent  touching  key. 

The  streets  are  lined  with  posters  in  endless 
variety  of  phrase,  color  and  size.  Nor  are  the 
public  conveyances  exempt.  Mercantile  interests 
are  forgotten,  the  spaces  traditionally  preempted 
by  familiar  commercial  announcements  are  sud- 
denly and  universally  superseded  by  the  pressing 
appeals  of  the  distant  sufferers  from  the  war.  The 
business  houses  of  the  town  have  with  one  accord 
turned  over  their  plants  and  their  high-salaried  ad- 
vertising experts  to  the  service  of  the  great  cause; 
and  these  latter  with  their  well-known  skill  por- 
tray, with  pens  and  brushes  dipped  in  the  tears  and 
sorrows  of  the  victims,  each  pathetic  detail  of  their 
misery.  Only  as  an  afterthought  and  in  the  most 
inconspicuous  manner  is  it  divulged  that  these 
spaces  in  railway  and  newspaper  are  "contributed 
by  the  First  National  Bank,"  or  by  the  Universal 
Sweets  Corporation. 

The  ancient  easy  relationships  of  the  com- 
munity have  been  set  awry.  At  first  glance  it 
looks  indeed  simple  enough.     One  hears  a  lot,  to 


98  THEJEWPAYS 

be  sure,  of  a  committee  which  is  in  charge  of  all 
these  amazing  operations;  and  the  appeals  and 
exultations  are  addressed  presumably  to  the  public. 
In  practice,  however,  the  line  between  committee 
and  public,  between  solicitor  and  solicited  is  not  so 
readily  drawn.  The  names  printed  on  the  deluge 
of  stationery  which  comes  by  the  morning  mail  are 
a  fiction;  the  whole  town  is  tlie  committee.  What 
is  taking  place  is  not  a  mere  benevolent  enterprise. 
Doubtless  that  is  the  eventual  and  ultimate  object. 
But  for  the  time  being  and  in  its  effect  on  the 
home  folks  it  is  in  round  terms  a  conspiracy  which 
is  spreading  with  astonishing  speed  and  engulfing 
all  one's  associates.  One  is  walking  on  seemingly 
familiar  ground,  but  every  inch  of  it  is  overspread 
with  an  invisible  net.  There  is  no  telling  at  all 
when  one  shall  inadvertently  wander  into  its 
meshes. 

The  entire  delicate  mechanism  of  mutual  confi- 
dence in  society,  in  business,  in  the  very  home  has 
been  undermined;  so  that  one  is  at  a  loss  as  to 
whom  to  trust  and  whom  to  suspect.  One  gets 
invitations  and  instinctively  accepts  them.  But  be- 
fore long  one  discovers  that  the  very  social  ameni- 
ties have  been  taken  over  by  the  campaign  organi- 
zation. A  luncheon  has  ceased  to  be  (for  the 
duration  of  the  campaign  at  least)  a  friendly  hour's 
companionship,  it  has  become  one  of  the  numerous 


Our  Boys  Freed  Them 

WON'T  YOU  FEED  THEM? 


AMERICAN  JEWRY!  The  woKes  of  hunger  mk  stil)  adatking. 
Will  we  protect  our  own  from  starvation? 


A  RELIEF   t_*Kl'.F-<' 


HASP    SA^?      -OmIi,  (i. 


SHALL    WE    SAVE    THEM? 

WHAT    WILL    YOU    DO? 


Our  Boys  Freed  Them- 

WON'T  YOU  FEED  THEM? 


I  plead  (or  this  mother. 

I  plead  (or  this  babe  Jt  her  breast. 

I  plead  for  ihovisands  ul  stjr\ing  children 

Starvation  is  winning— while  yoii  Woil. 

I  plead  for  your  generosity,  so  that  THEY  may  live. 


1MIJUCA.1    JtWHH    lElltF    COHMUllt 


im^iimfmHimys'-m^ 


^i^j^^:^iJ^^^iWJeiy..-i.>^h 


JEWISH 

sufferer: 


CAMPAIGN    POSTERS 


ACAMPAIGN  99 

methods  of  soliciting  contributions.  And  what  is 
true  of  the  noon  repast  applies  with  equal  force  to 
dinners,  card  parties,  the  links  and  the  club. 
There  is  no  safety  anywhere.  The  whole  com- 
munity has  been  reorganized  overnight  into  a 
mutual  association  for  soliciting  funds  on  behalf 
of  the  Jewish  or  Polish  or  Armenian  war  sufferers. 
The  teller  at  the  bank,  the  stationer  across  the  street, 
the  bootblack  around  the  comer,  are  no  longer  in- 
terested in  their  usual  respective  businesses;  they 
are  each  and  all  the  secret  agents  of  the  Relief 
Committee. 

With  the  home  and  family  life  matters  have  gone 
even  worse.  The  domestic  establishment  has  for 
the  moment  been  shelved  and  its  place  has  been 
taken  by  a  subsidiary  of  the  campaign  forces. 
The  mother  of  the  household  is  now  the  captain  of 
a  team  assigned  to  the  exploitation  of  a  specified 
territory,  which  as  all  charity  should,  begins  at 
home.  Her  badge  is  a  mere  external  though  im- 
pressive decoration.  What  astonishes  her  own 
husband  particularly  is  the  vast  extent  of  her  in- 
formation about  the  past  history,  the  present  needs, 
and  the  future  possibilities  of  her  beneficiaries. 
One  has  never  suspected  her  gifts  of  organization 
and  resourcefulness  as  a  business  getter  before. 
What  a  tremendous  asset  she  could  have  been  in 
her  husband's  economic  enterprises! 


100  THE    JEW    PAYS 

The  wife  is  no  more  than  the  leading  factor  in 
the  plot.  The  dramatis  personae  include  one's 
children  and  even  one's  very  domestic  servants. 
The  cook  is  only  incidentally  a  culinary  expert. 
Primarily  he  is  an  Italian  and  a  member  of  the 
Auxiliary  of  the  Milk  Fund  for  Sicilian  Babies. 
The  chauffeur  has  his  own  racial  affiliations,  and 
though  he  continues  perfunctorily  to  perform  his 
customary  secular  duties  his  chief  and  absorbing 
interest  now  is  in  determining  by  what  methods  he 
might  most  efficiently  make  the  contribution  of  his 
employer  to  the  Association  for  the  Blinded  and 
Crippled  by  the  War  commensurate  with  the  said 
employer's  income.  The  eldest  heir  of  the  name 
announces  modestly  that  he  has  resolved  to  turn 
over  the  entire  savings  of  a  lengthy  and  arduous 
lifetime  to  the  French  Orphans'  Fund  and  there  is 
a  query  in  his  voice  as  to  the  exact  figure  that  his 
parent's  contribution  would  come  to  should  the  lat- 
ter, as  he  must,  match  it  in  a  decent  ratio  to  his  own 
resources  and  sacrifice. 

The  outcome  of  this  universal  and  persistent 
grilling  is  but  a  matter  of  time  and  endurance. 
In  the  end  no  mortal  man  can  successfully  hold 
out,  and  when  the  surrender  inevitably  comes,  let 
it  not  be  supposed  that  it  is  a  mere  matter  of  finan- 
cial surrender.  One  capitulates  unconditionally. 
And  that  involves  (first  of  all,  to  be  sure)  a  mone- 


A   CAMPAIGN  101 

tary  donation  of  handsome  proportions,  but  chiefly 
a  going  over  to  the  ranks  of  the  enemy.  One  has 
in  yielding,  made  common  cause  with  the  con- 
spirators and  tacitly  agreed  to  do  unto  others  as  he 
has  all  this  while  been  done  by. 


CHAPTER   XI 

THE  CONDUCT  OF  A  CAMPAIGN 
AN  INTERIOR  VIEW 

WHAT  has  just  preceded  is  but  an  account  of 
what  every  American  has  lived  through 
while  this  community  was  in  the  throes  of  the  cam- 
paign. It  is  an  attempt  at  portraying  what  occurs 
on  this  side  of  the  footlights  and  is  visible  to  the 
throng  in  the  pit.  What  goes  on  in  the  inner  re- 
cesses of  the  stage  in  the  process  of  assembling  this 
amazing  spectacle,  is  a  phase  of  the  story  that  is  not 
so  well  known;  but  it  is  far  and  away  the  most  im- 
pressive. I  do  not  pretend  to  know  to  what  heights 
this  inner  organization  has  attained  in  other  bodies, 
but  it  is  precisely  here  that  the  new  director  of  the 
A.  J.  R.  C.  made  his  unique  contribution  to  the 
labors  and  achievements  of  the  American  Jewish 
Relief  Committee.  The  details  of  campaigning,  the 
toil  of  country-wide  organization,  the  complexities 
of  publicity  are  largely  mechanical  tasks.  They 
demand  persistent  energy  and  indefatigable  appli- 
cation. And  these  qualifications  have  been  very 
notable  in  the  equipment  of  the  earlier  manage- 

102 


A    CAMPAIGN  103 

ment.  What  distinguished  Mr.  Billikopf  was,  as  I 
have  previously  intimated,  a  rare  personal  force,  a 
matchless  capacity  for  winning  to  his  side  strategic 
personalities  and  recruiting  them  into  the  service  of 
his  enterprise. 

It  is  this  valuable  gift  that  has  enabled  the  new 
director  of  the  A.  J.  R.  C.  to  improve  so  richly  on 
the  past  and  to  write  a  new  chapter  in  the  history 
of  war  philanthropy.  He  had  not,  as  it  will  be 
remembered,  any  very  considerable  acquaintance 
among  the  leading  figures  of  American  Jewry,  and 
in  New  York  he  had  been  practically  a  stranger. 
He  had  set  down  in  his  little  note  book  a  brief  list 
of  salient  names,  and  had  mentally  resolved  that 
though  he  was  to  be  himself  the  titular  Commander- 
in-Chief,  he  would  make  these  influential  men  and 
women  the  generals  in  his  forthcoming  enterprise. 
The  name  was  virtually  all  he  knew  of  Mr.  Jacob 
H.  Schiff,  of  Mr.  Felix  M.  Warburg,  of  Mr.  Nathan 
Straus,  of  Mr.  Henry  Morgenthau  and  of  Mr.  Louis 
Marshall,  and  of  half  a  dozen  others. 

He  proceeded  to  get  behind  these  names  to  the 
reality.  He  convinced  himself,  by  way  of  a  begin- 
ning, that  he  had  the  rarest  of  merchandise  to  offer 
to  these  influential  persons  and  that  it  was,  there- 
fore, inevitable  that  they  should  become  interested. 
It  was  this  one  twist  in  his  psychology  that  saved 
him  from  failure.     His  predecessors  had  rational- 


104  THE   JEW   PAYS 

ized  the  state  of  things  differently.  They  had  hesi- 
tated to  approach  significant  personalities  because 
it  had  seemed  to  them  that  they  had  little  to  offer 
to  their  patrons.  They  were  asking  for  large 
contributions  (so  they  reasoned)  and  were  giving 
nothing  in  return  for  them;  therefore,  their  delicate 
sense  told  them  it  would  be  extremely  presumptuous 
to  accept,  in  addition  to  financial  assistance,  the 
time  and  devoted  interest  of  their  clients. 

Mr.  Billikopf  stated  the  case  to  himself  in  char- 
acteristic terms.  Far  from  regarding  the  transac- 
tion as  accruing  to  the  benefit  of  one  side  alone,  he 
fell  back  on  his  grasp  of  realistic  psychology  and 
arrived  at  the  somewhat  startling  conclusion  that  in 
all  philanthropy,  and  especially  in  war  benevolence, 
the  benefit,  in  so  far  as  it  is  one-sided,  redounds 
almost  exclusively  to  the  giver.  In  large  measure, 
he  owed  this  inverted  but  upright  logic  to  Mr. 
Nathan  Straus,  who  some  time  before  had  altered 
the  slogan  "Give  till  it  hurts"  to  read  "Give  till  it 
feels  good,"  and  our  new  director,  taking  counsel 
with  himself,  came  to  see  the  relationship  between 
solicitor  and  solicited  in  some  such  light  as  this: 

"Of  course,  I  have  no  material  stock  in  my  trade,  but 
where  has  it  ever  been  set  down  that  material  goods  are 
the  one  specie*  of  irresistible  merchandise?  It  is  as 
true  as  it  ever  was  that  what  men  and  women  most 
earnestly   seek   is  the   intangible,   unexchangeabje,   and 


A    CAMPAIGN  105 

imperishable  article.  I  am  a  trafficker  in  sympathy,  and 
it  is  only  a  question  of  skillful  merchandising,  of  com- 
petent methods  in  convincing  my  clientele  of  the  supreme 
worth  of  the  goods  I  offer  them." 

So  Mr.  Billikopf  proceeded  to  avail  himself  of 
the  really  fundamental  assets  in  his  trade.  Pri- 
marily, he  was  not  interested  in  obtaining  huge 
financial  contributions  from  his  leading  figures. 
Great  sums  he  regarded  as  being  valuable  to  his 
purposes  only  in  so  far  as  they  possessed  psycho- 
logical value — that  is  to  say,  in  so  far  as  they  con- 
stituted an  incentive  to  other  givers.  Often  enough, 
to  be  sure,  he  went  to  disproportionate  lengths  in 
his  endeavors  to  raise  prospective  contributions  to 
some  higher  figure.  He  had  worked  up  a  scale  in 
which  each  man  or  woman  had  his  or  her  definite 
place,  and  he  had  made  it  a  rigid  policy  never,  as 
far  as  it  was  in  his  power,  to  permit  any  contribu- 
tion to  slide  below  the  level  he  had  set  for  it.  But 
all  this  was  part  and  parcel  of  his  larger  conception 
of  the  policy  of  the  organization.  In  many  an  in- 
stance he  felt  that  he  could  well  afford  to  invest  in 
publicity  a  sum  actually  greater  than  the  donation 
he  was  aiming  for.  But  the  issue  and  success  of  an 
entire  campaign  often  depended  on  the  size  of  the 
offering  of  a  given  prominent  person.  If,  for  in- 
stance, the  leading  citizen  of  Atlanta  should  be 
known  to  have  cut  his  share  below  a  previously  ap- 


106  THE    JEW    PAYS 

pointed  figure,  the  fact  would  be  nothing  less  than 
a  kind  of  sabotage  of  the  Atlanta  campaign  as  a 
whole.  Lesser  persons  would  inevitably  be  guided 
by  the  pace  set  for  them  by  the  leader  of  their  city; 
and  the  net  result  of  such  an  apparently  insignifi- 
cant mishap  at  the  outset  would  be  not  only  a 
reduction  in  the  aggregate,  but  a  weakened,  disor- 
ganized campaign  and  a  virtually  complete  loss  of 
those  by-products  of  an  intense  atmosphere,  which 
Mr.  Billikopf  always  held  to  be  the  most  valuable 
domestic  increment  of  the  entire  affair. 

It  became,  therefore,  one  of  the  fundamentals  in 
the  new  technique  to  wind  up  the  financial  phase  of 
a  campaign  before  the  public  spectacle  had  begun. 
The  preliminary  maneuvers  received  the  most  de- 
tailed and  careful  manipulations.  Commonly  the 
curtain-raiser  took  the  form  of  a  luncheon  or  dinner 
given  to  a  carefully  selected, — and  as  a  rule  small, 
— group.  It  was  essential  that  this  group  should 
include  not  only  the  financially  and  socially  repre- 
sentative, but  the  utmost  care  was  necessary  in  the 
selection  to  avoid  an  inadvertent  chilling  of  the  en- 
thusiasm of  the  gathering.  And  this  involved  the 
most  painstaking  scrutiny  of  each  prospective  guest 
— a  research  into  his  past  philanthropic  record,  his 
social  temperament,  and  his  recent  and  present  re- 
lationship with  his  fellow  citizens.  To  the  local 
officers  had,  of  course,  to  be  delegated  the  details  of 


A    CAMPAIGN  107 

such  a  program,  but  in  outline  the  director  from 
headquarters  became  for  the  time  being  a  delver 
into  the  communal  ins  and  outs  of  every  city  which 
was  about  to  undertake  a  relief  campaign.  Much 
of  the  data  thus  acquired  was  conveyed  to  the 
speaker  who  was  invariably  detailed  to  address  this 
pre-campaign  meeting.  The  speakers,  by  the  by, 
ranged  from  bishops  to  financiers  and  back  again 
to  nationally  known  rabbis.  Dr.  Stephen  S.  Wise 
and  Dr.  Nathan  Kraus  gave,  perhaps,  more  un- 
stintingly  of  their  time  and  their  talents  than  the 
rest.  But  the  honor  list  extends  to  every  corner 
of  the  country  and  embraces  well-nigh  every  name 
of  oratorical  importance. 

It  was  not,  however,  in  recruiting  talent  or  even 
in  the  development  of  the  technique  of  publicity  in 
the  ordinary  sense  that  the  new  director  made  his 
departure  from  the  past.  The  achievement,  to  put 
it  roundly,  consisted  in  a  vigorous  application  to  the 
task  in  hand  of  the  fundamentals  of  psychology.  I 
am  not  sure  whether  a  publicity  expert  would  find 
any  startling  improvement  in  the  material  achieve- 
ments of  the  new  director  as  compared  with  those 
of  his  predecessors.  Emphatically  the  new  start 
was  a  matter  of  marshaling  unused  private  re- 
sources. The  earlier  management  had  looked 
upon  the  prominent  men  in  Jewry  as  its  chief  asset 
in  the  direct  raising  of  funds.     The  new  manage- 


108  THE    JEW    PAYS 

ment  turned  its  attention  to  the  problem  of  securing 
the  cooperation  of  newer  and  less  known  men  by 
making  an  astute  use  of  the  fame  and  influence  of 
these  leading  figures.  Mr.  Billikopf  saw  in  such 
personalities  as  Mr.  Straus  and  Mr.  Schiff  far 
vaster  possibilities  than  the  fortunes  they  might  be 
induced  to  contribute.  Names  like  theirs  had  quite 
a  magic  potency  which,  properly  harnessed,  could 
be  rendered  instrumental  in  bringing  in  untouched 
millions  and  injecting  a  spirit  into  the  proceedings 
hitherto  undreamed  of.  All  of  these  men  and  a 
considerable  number  of  others  were  heartily  dis- 
posed to  be  harnessed,  since  they  were  already 
members  of  the  council  of  the  committee.  The  new 
director  invited  their  attention  to  the  tremendous 
services  they  were  capable  of  contributing  to  the 
cause  they  were  so  vitally  interested  in  by  lending 
their  names  directly  and  with  a  minimum  of  reserve 
to  the  process  of  campaigning.  The  suggestion 
was  irresistible.  Never  before  had  such  eminent 
men  of  aff"airs  participated  so  constantly  and  so 
devotedly  in  the  interests  of  a  philanthropy  as  did 
Messrs.  Jacob  H.  Schiff,  Nathan  Straus,  Louis 
Marshall,  Julius  Rosenwald,  Abram  Elkus,  and 
Henry  Morgenthau  in  tlie  interest  of  the  American 
Jewish  Relief  Committee. 

Each  of  these  men  at  one  period  or  another  gave 
a  kind  of  blank  check  to  the  management.     Each 


A    CAMPAIGN  109 

wrote  innumerable  letters  to  prospective  contribu- 
tors who  required  special  incentives.  Mr.  SchifF 
and  Mr.  Straus,  despite  their  advanced  age,  were 
ever  ready  to  make  distant  journeys,  whenever  in 
the  judgment  of  the  committee  their  presence  was 
required  in  the  opening  of  a  campaign.  Mr.  Elkus 
and  Mr.  Morgenthau,  during  1918,  became  regular 
bookings  in  the  committee's  far-flung  circuit. 

It  would  yield  interesting  results  if  one  were  to 
estimate  the  incalculable  fortunes  that  were  de- 
flected into  the  coff^ers  of  relief  in  consequence  of 
the  personal  influence  exerted  by  these  men  at  the 
suggestion  of  their  young  generalissimo.  I  have  a 
vivid  picture  of  the  latter,  flanked  at  his  desk  by  a 
pair  of  telephones,  in  constant  conspiratorial  com- 
munication with  the  princes  of  earth.  Latest  re- 
ports indicate  (he  confides  to  one  of  these)  that  the 
leading  personage  of  San  Francisco  will  sabotage 
the  California  campaign  by  scrimping  his  proper 
share.  Of  course,  one  might  withhold  publicity  in 
the  matter  until  the  end,  but  it  were  best  if  a  little 
eff^ective  pressure  could  be  brought  on  certain  defi- 
nite points  of  his  position.  Would  Mr.  A.  write 
him  in  brief  explaining  the  urgency  of  the  situa- 
tion? Or  —  the  chairman  of  the  State  com- 
mittee of  Oklahoma  is  in  the  city  on  business.  He 
has  been  an  indefatigable  and  most  valuable 
worker;  a  new  campaign  in  his  State  is  about  to  be 


no  THE    JEW    PAYS 

launched;  and  there  is  no  telling  how  salutary  to 
his  personal  spirits  and  the  general  result  an  in- 
vitation to  lunch  by  Mr.  B.  would  be.  Or  —  an 
attempt  is  being  made  to  line  up  the  insurance 
fraternity  on  behalf  of  the  forthcoming  campaign 
in  the  city.  Mr.  X.  is  not  only  a  wealthy  and 
prominent  member  of  the  trade,  but  he  is  consumed 
with  immoderate  social  ambitions.  His  acceptance 
of  the  chairmanship  of  the  Insurance  Men's  Com- 
mittee would  be  a  foregone  conclusion,  if  only  Mr. 
C.  could  manage  to  be  present  at  the  committee's 
organization  meeting  to-morrow  evening  and  bestow 
certain  subtle  signs  of  recognition  upon  him.  The 
device,  once  one  has  captured  it,  is  capable  of  in- 
finite variation,  and  Mr.  Billikopf's  cabinet  of  fame 
and  distinction  is  at  his  service  for  them  all. 

The  human  instrument,  in  brief,  is  firmly  grasped 
in  the  nimble  hands  of  our  director  and  its  every 
stop  played  upon  to  excellent  purpose.  He  has 
studied  and  charted  and  graphed  its  possibilities  in 
infinite  detail.  Given  a  specified  impulse  and  he 
can,  with  striking  accuracy,  forecast  the  response. 
That,  in  substance,  is  the  essence  of  his  technique. 
The  mechanics  of  mere  organization,  the  intricate 
problems  of  public  campaigning,  he  leaves  to  those 
who  are  gifted  with  the  leaning  and  skill  for  that 
sort  of  thing:  his  is  a  novel  and  distinct  trade  in 
itself.     And  this  trade  is  marked  by  a  simplicity 


IN   THE  WHIRL   OF  A    CAMPAIGN 


A    CAMPAIGN  111 

and  a  freedom  from  abstruse  technicality  character- 
istic of  the  artist  and  the  pioneer  in  science.  There 
are  no  fantastic  instruments  in  his  shop,  no  bustle 
and  scramble,  no  impressive  files  and  devices.  He 
is  but  a  modest  searcher  into  the  recesses  of  human 
motive,  a  practitioner  in  the  art  of  making  human 
contacts. 

To  the  untrained  mind  there  is  a  suggestion  of 
cynicism  in  the  contemplation  of  such  an  art.  It 
thinks  of  a  cold  and  somewhat  desiccated  adept, 
removed  from  the  -common  emotions  and  concerns 
of  everyday  humanity,  insensitively  dissecting  and 
laying  bare  the  sacred  infirmities  of  our  nature.  It 
is  an  overdrawn  picture.  This  new  arrival  in  the 
ranks  of  the  subtler  professions  is  not  in  the  least 
remote.  He  is  very  much  a  part  of  his  own  subject 
matter — that  is  precisely  why  he  is  so  astonishingly 
effective  at  it.  He  regularly  begins  his  analysis 
with  the  nearest  specimen  at  hand — himself.  And 
he  arrives  in  the  directest  way  imaginable  at  the 
commonplace  conclusion  that  though  mankind  is 
very  profoundly  moved  by  the  impulse  of  unaided 
sympathy,  the  instinct  for  generosity  is  exposed  to 
other  modes  of  irritation  and  is  no  more  immune 
than  other  human  appetites  to  jading.  Men  are 
what  they  are,  and  it  would  be  mere  scrupling  sen- 
timentality to  forbear  when  other  powerful  motives 
may  so  readily  in  the  interests  of  a  good  cause  be 


112  THE   JEW   PAYS 

called  into  play.  The  craving  for  adulation,  self- 
advancement,  and  common  vanity  may  not  be 
creditable  to  the  race;  but  it  is  idle  to  deny  that 
they  are  part  of  all  our  equipment  and  it  would  be 
sheer  negligence  to  decline  them  recognition,  when 
the  welfare  of  millions  is  at  stake. 

This  resort  to  a  subtler  motivation  by  the  em- 
ployment of  personal  influences  in  due  time  de- 
velops into  an  instrument  of  the  widest  utility. 
Just  as  the  Rosenwald  contribution,  coupled  with 
the  ten  per  cent,  formula  upon  which  it  was  con- 
ditioned, was  at  once  adopted  by  numberless  lead- 
ers in  other  places,  so  the  device  of  direct  individual 
pressure  soon  became  a  fundamental  principle  in 
local  organization  everywhere.  Something  in  the 
nature  of  a  hierarchy  of  social  and  commercial 
prestige  was  gradually  elaborated;  the  national 
figures  communicated  certain  forms  of  influence  to 
a  limited  list  of  prominent  men  and  women  in 
various  localities,  and  these  in  turn  conveyed  a 
similar  form  of  motivation  to  strategic  individuals 
in  their  respective  districts;  until  the  time  came 
when  every  hamlet  in  the  country  was  in  some  sort 
a  link  in  the  exquisitely  graduated  chain.  This 
broad-gauged  system  was,  furthermore,  being  con- 
tinually supplemented  by  a  parallel  mechanism  of 
official  stimulation.  The  President  of  the  United 
States  having  set  the  pace  by  his  proclamation,  the 


A    CAMPAIGN  113 

organization  succeeded  in  interesting,  first,  gov- 
ernors of  states,  then  chief  executives  of  municipali- 
ties, to  give  the  enterprise  a  public  send-'off. 

The  purely  monetary  results  of  this  astute  man- 
agement were  enormous,  as  a  mere  glance  at  the 
figures  would  suffice  to  show.  But  the  spiritual  and 
social  by-products  of  the  intensive  cultivation  of  a 
communal  esprit  de  corps  surpassed  all  expecta- 
tions. New  blood  was  infused  into  the  civic  and 
philanthropic  leadership  of  scores  of  cities.  Men 
and  women  without  number  and  in  every  part  of 
the  country  who  had  never  before  been  active  in 
communal  affairs  were  initiated  into  th'e  ways  of 
social  usefulness,  and  came  away  feeling  that  there 
were  responsibilities  for  them  which  they  could 
never  again  disregard.  And,  contrary  to  the  com- 
mon assumption,  the  common  effort  of  disinterested 
people  in  behalf  of  a  cause  removed  from  barter 
and  profit  has  served  to  knit  indifferent  and  often 
exclusive  and  distrustful  groups  into  a  closer  and 
more  intimate  community  of  understanding  and 
cooperation. 


CHAPTER   XII 

THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  GIVING 

A  GLANCE  at  some  of  the  salient  facts  in  the 
history  of  war  relief  suggests  a  number  of 
curious  and  rather  pertinent  generalizations. 
There  is,  to  begin  with,  something  striking  to  the 
imagination  in  the  spectacle  of  huge  fortunes  accu- 
mulated upon  foundations  so  intangible  and  impon- 
derable. One  sees  practical  men  of  affairs,  whose 
outlook  and  habit  of  mind  has  trained  them 
(presumably)  to  a  rigid  conception  of  values,  sud- 
denly and  unaccountably  flinging  the  principles  of 
a  life-time  to  the  winds  and  engaging  not  merely 
their  material  resources,  but  their  enthusiasm  and 
their  high-priced  time  and  energy  upon  a  fantastic, 
airy  venture  which  yields  no  visible  returns.  In 
ordinary  times,  in  moments  when  we  lightly  think 
of  these  men  as  being  most  themselves,  you  could 
not  very  easily  get  them  to  participate  in  activities 
outside  the  well-defined  boundaries  of  their  usual 
affairs.  When  all  is  said  and  done,  the  lion's  share 
of  the  income  of  relief  societies  comes,  after  all, 
out  of  the  pockets  of  people  broadly  belonging  to 
the  ranks  of  business — people  popularly  classified 
as  the  level-minded,  the  profit-seeking,  the  hard- 

114 


GIVING  115 

headed,  the  unsentimental.  And  one  beholds  them 
hobnobbing  with  social  workers  and  charitable 
ladies,  lavishly  squandering  their  substance  and 
their  talents  upon  inconsequential  concerns,  weakly 
yielding  to  altruistic  appeals,  often  even  lending  a 
hand  in  propagating  them — and  one  wonders  in- 
voluntarily. What  has  become  of  the  far-famed 
tough  back-bone  of  our  most  substantial  class? 

And  this  interest,  be  it  noted,  shows  none  of  the 
ear-marks  of  the  temporary  hobby.  It  endures 
with  unabated  zest,  not  merely  throughout  an  entire 
campaign,  but  holds  its  own  from  year  to  year  and 
grows  in  intensity  as  time  goes  on.  It  is  seldom, 
indeed,  that  the  personnel  of  committees  is  changed 
to  any  appreciable  extent  in  a  given  State  or  city, 
unless  it  is  by  the  adherence  of  new  converts  to  the 
faith.  The  appetite  for  good  works  far  from  show- 
ing symptoms  of  getting  jaded,  seems  unmistakably 
io  grow  by  what  it  feeds  on.  Other  observers  have 
noted,  and  the  statistics  confirm,  that  contributions 
tend,  broadly  speaking,  to  increase  in  geometrical 
progression.  Defection  from  the  ranks  of  donors 
is  even  rarer  than  back-sliding  in  the  councils  of 
active  workers. 

It  is  a  strange  phenomenon.  Mankind  is  notori- 
ous for  its  capacity  for  fatigue.  It  tires  of  nearly 
everything.  Men  grow  weary  of  their  work  and 
of  their  pleasures.     There  is  no  telling  to  what  de- 


116  THE   JEW   PAYS 

gree  reform  and  revolution,  the  rise  of  new  sects  in 
religion  and  the  decay  of  old  ones,  the  migration 
of  races,  and  the  exchange  of  monarchies  for  re- 
publics and  republics  for  Soviets — there  is  no  tell- 
ing to  what  extent  all  mutations  in  the  body  politic 
are  influenced  by  the  element  of  fatigue.  If  only 
populations  could  be  kept  interested,  or  at  least 
indifferent,  and  disinclined  to  change,  the  heads  of 
statesmen  and  pontiffs  would,  perhaps,  not  turn 
gray  so  prematurely.  Yet  the  war  relief  engineer 
has  been  with  us  this  half  a  decade  with  all  his 
shouting  and  trumpeting  and  nagging  and  cajoling 
and  downright  threatening;  and  not  a  rumble  any- 
where of  mutiny,  not  a  stir  anywhere  to  depose  him. 
Still,  as  in  the  earliest  blissful  days  of  the  autumn 
of  1914,  the  procession  of  magi  bearing  gifts  moves 
on,  headed  for  his  sanctum — excepting  only  that  its 
ranks  are  fuller  and  its  burthens  richer. 

Is  it  not  legitimate,  then,  to  inquire  into  the 
sources  of  this  astonishing  vitality  and  growth? 
When  the  American  Jewish  Relief  Committee, 
which  congratulated  itself  upon  its  achievements  in 
harvesting  ten  million  dollars  two  years  ago,  now 
confidently  sets  out  to  raise  twenty-five  millions, 
with  every  sign  pointing  toward  success,  the  search 
for  the  hidden  springs  of  its  mechanism  becomes 
irresistible.  Were  the  Jewish  organizations  alone 
in  this  uninterrupted  progress,  one  might  be  in- 


GIVING  117 

clined  to  answer  that  Jews  have  a  habit  of  benevo- 
lence. But  they  are  not  alone.  Drives  without 
end  or  limit  continue  among  us  as  if  no  armistice 
had  ever  been  signed.  We  have  scarcely  done  with 
the  Near  East,  when  the  victims  of  the  latest  Italian 
earthquake  are  upon  us.  The  Salvation  Army 
scrapes  its  posters  off  the  hoardings,  only  to  make 
room  for  the  placards  of  the  Boy  Scouts.  The 
Victory  Loan  orators  clear  the  rostrum,  only  to  be 
followed  by  the  Knights  of  Columbus.  But  the 
Jews  themselves  have  kicked  far  out  of  the  traces 
of  mere  tradition.  Even  they  have  not  made  a 
habit  of  accumulating  imperial  fortunes  annually 
for  distribution  among  the  needy.  The  habit 
theory  will  not  hold  water.  The  indulgence  in 
voluntary  sacrifice  is  not  pleasant  enough  to  become 
second  nature  to  any  race. 

Well,  there  has  been  the  widest  range  of  theoriz- 
ing. Well-disposed  psychologists  have  taken  the 
shortest  route  to  truth,  and  have  submitted  that  the 
response  is  merely  proportionate  to  the  emergency. 
Mankind,  they  have  explained,  is  normally  moved 
to  generosity  by  the  spectacle  of  calamity,  regard- 
less of  previous  training  and  habits  of  thrift.  The 
same  man  who  will  keep  a  whole  office  staff  up 
until  midnight  to  locate  a  missing  penny  in  the  ac- 
counts, will  give  away  half  a  year's  income  without 
a    qualm.     Mr.    Billikopf,    as    we    know,    holds 


118  THE    JEW   PAYS 

tenaciously  to  the  ancient  doctrine  that  those  who 
have  given  their  talents  to  the  accumulation  of 
great  wealth  here  below,  are  most  inclined  to  lay 
up  treasures  in  Heaven  where  they  may  be  least 
exposed  to  corrosion  and  theft.  Others,  on  the 
other  hand,  have  made  much  of  the  "motivation  of 
vanity"  and  have  seen  an  astute  business  sense  in 
the  exchange  of  large  sums  for  still  larger  returns 
in  social  and  even  economic  prestige.  I  am  not 
eager  to  enter  the  discussion  either  as  an  umpire 
or  as  an  added  contestant.  If  I  must  offer  a  judg- 
ment, I  should  lean  to  the  conclusion  that  the  truth 
is  with  them  all.  There  is  no  more  a  uniform 
philanthropic  mind  than  there  is  an  integrated  mind 
among  the  mass  of  men  who  compose  an  army. 
Every  class  and  temperament  has  been  represented 
on  the  contributors'  lists,  and  there  is  no  theory  but 
applies  to  some,  and  none  that  can  lit  them  all. 
Between  Nathan  Straus,  who  had  to  be  restrained 
from  giving  away  his  very  home,  and  the  insurance 
agent  who  looks  upon  his  association  with  the  Com- 
mittee as  a  subtle  mechanism  of  business-getting, 
there  is  a  long  road  and  there  is  room  enough  on  it 
for  every  conceivable  motive  in  real  or  factitious 
generosity. 

Doubtless,  the  incentive  of  pure  mercy  is  at  once 
the  most  potent  and  of  the  widest  application.  Cer- 
tainly, this  is  true  of  the  earliest  stages.     Witness 


GIVING  119 

the  spontaneous  enthusiasm  of  the  classic  mass- 
meeting  at  Carnegie  Hall,  and  the  warm  response 
everywhere,  when  once  the  state  of  suffering  abroad 
became  manifest.  It  is,  I  believe,  in  sustaining  an 
even  level  of  interest  that  the  influence  of  other 
impulses  plays  a  real  part.  I  have,  myself,  been 
impressed  time  and  time  again,  as  I  observed  the 
progress  of  campaigns,  to  how  vast  an  extent  work- 
ers and  contributors  alike  are  moved  by  immediate, 
as  distinguished  from  remote,  incentives.  There  is 
a  civic  phase  in  the  matter  of  war  philanthropy 
which  is  commonly  overlooked.  In  most  of  the 
recent  drives  the  element  of  pure  benevolence  is 
very  slightly  stressed;  and  for  the  most  excellent 
psychological  reasons.  The  participants  have  by 
this  time  ceased  to  visualize  with  any  great  vivid- 
ness the  tragedy  which  their  aid  is  to  mitigate. 
Subconsciously,  they  are,  of  course,  aware  of  the 
ultimate  destination  of  their  funds;  but  what  in- 
terests them  directly  is  that  dear  old  Michigan  shall 
go  "over  the  top"  and  incidentally  teach  proud, 
disdainful  New  York  that  Western  States  know  how 
to  be  generous  when  duty  calls.  Now  that  the  war 
is  over,  it  can  give  no  comfort  to  the  enemy  to  sug- 
gest that  the  same  subtle  motive  works  in  the  raising 
of  volunteers  for  our  anned  forces.  The  given 
community  is,  of  course,  primarily  moved  by  the 
patriotic  sense,  but  directly  the  pride  of  the  imme- 


120  THE    JEW   PAYS 

diate  locality  counts  for  vastly  more.  One  wants 
to  beat  Germany,  no  doubt;  but  Germany  is  a  long 
way  off,  and  the  satisfaction  of  beating  the  adjacent 
village  or  the  next  State  is  enormously  keener. 

An  added  influence  springs  out  of  the  curious 
human  club-sense.  The  hardest  work  an  organizer 
in  any  field  has  to  do  is  to  get  people  to  cross  his 
threshold.  Once  they  are  in,  he  can  trust  them  not 
only  to  stay  in,  but  to  drag  every  one  of  their  family 
and  acquaintance,  and  every  passer-by,  in  after 
them.  It  is  a  commonplace  phenomenon.  I  may 
have  some  very  lively  objections  to  the  synagogue 
or  the  Methodist  church,  but  having  been  persuaded 
to  join  in  its  activities,  I  have  become  more  than 
a  mere  member.  I  have  become  a  missionary. 
But  only  yesterday  Mr.  Jonas  Weil  may  have  com- 
plained that  the  War  Relief  Committee  was  a  pest 
and  a  nuisance;  but  somehow  or  other  a  member 
of  his  family  or  of  his  firm  has  succeeded  in  bring- 
ing him  in,  and  from  now  on  he  will  not  only  con- 
tribute heavily  and  with  good  grace,  but  he  will 
regard  every  one  of  his  friends  and  associates  who 
remain  outside  as  a  quitter  and  a  slacker  and  will 
never  rest  until  they  are  in  with  him.  How  far 
Mr.  Jonas  Weil's  behavior  is  a  complex  of  the  in- 
stinct for  proselyting  and  the  desire  to  see  the  rest 
of  the  world  in  his  own  shoes,  I  am  willing  to  leave 
to  the  experts  to  determine. 


CHAPTER   XIII 

THE  SHARE  OF  THE  OTHERS 

FROM  its  very  inception,  the  movement  for 
saving  the  Jewish  people  in  the  war-torn 
countries  from  annihilation  assumed  something 
vastly  broader  than  a  tribal  or  sectarian  character. 
It  will  be  remembered  that  President  Wilson  gave 
the  movement  his  blessing  and  support  before  it 
had  scarcely  begun.  But  the  American  people,  as 
a  whole,  seem  to  have  realized  from  the  first  that 
when  men  and  women  and  children  are  hungry  and 
suffering,  their  origin  and  their  faith  and  their 
local  habitation  are  the  least  important  things 
about  them.  Such  has,  time  out  of  mind,  been  the 
American  position  wherever  and  whenever  misfor- 
tune befell  human  beings.  And  this  disposition  of 
Americans  is,  I  assume,  a  demonstration  of  the  in- 
ternational color  of  American  thinking  and  sym- 
pathy, and  reminds  one  very  vividly  how  keenly 
alive  the  American  people  are  to  their  own  inter- 
national origin. 

But  whether  it  was  a  too  sensitive  Jewish  pride 
or  a  fidelity  to  its  record  for  independence  in  benev- 

121 


122  THE   JEW   PAYS 

olence,  there  was  for  a  long  time  a  reluctance  on 
the  part  of  the  leaders  to  accept  contributions  from 
the  non-Jews.  Even  to  this  day  there  persists  in 
various  quarters  a  very  deep  distrust  of  the  non- 
sectarian  campaign,  although  this  method  of  ap- 
peal has  proved  in  many  places  its  worth,  not  only 
by  a  virtual  doubling  of  collections,  but  especially 
by  its  contribution  to  an  enhanced  community 
spirit  and  a  better  mutual  understanding  between 
Jew  and  Gentile  wherever  the  plan  has  been  tri^d. 

But  despite  the  proud  reluctance  and  reticence  of 
the  American  Jew  himself,  contributions  large  and 
small,  financial  and  moral,  became  a  feature  of  no 
mean  proportion  from  the  very  outset.  The  gen- 
erous non-Jew,  undaunted  by  the  modesty  of  his 
Jewish  neighbor,  simply  insisted  that  he  shall  not 
be  excluded  from  participation  in  a  Christian  cause 
even  though  its  beneficiaries  might  be  the  un- 
baptized.  To  these  dedicated  men  and  women  this 
was  not  a  cause  for  any  sort  of  limited  group, 
however  genuine  or  artificial  the  lines  that  sepa- 
rated that  group  from  the  rest  of  mankind  might 
be.  Churchmen  reminded  their  followers  that 
they  owed  a  two-fold  debt  to  the  people  of  Christ 
— one,  for  that  people's  gift  to  the  world  of  its 
faith  and  its  prophets,  and  the  other  for  the  exile 
and  sorrows  which  Jews  have  been  subjected  to  in 
the  past  at  the  hands  of  would-be  Christians  and 


SHARE    OF    OTHERS     123 

in  the  name  of  Christianity.  And  laymen  remem- 
bered that  Jews  in  their  respective  American  com- 
munities had  ever  been  the  first  to  participate  in 
public  undertakings  with  their  money  and  their 
time,  whether  these  undertakings  were  of  a  broadly 
communal  character  or  of  a  distinctly  sectarian  and 
non-Jewish  kind. 

But,  primarily,  the  American  Gentile  looked 
upon  the  relief  of  Jews  in  Europe  as  a  purely 
human  task.  They  declined  to  rationalize  the 
matter.  People  were  in  want,  and  tliat  was 
enough.  As  Mr.  George  D.  Armistead,  the  post- 
master of  San  Antonio,  in  declining  to  accept 
thanks  for  his  share  in  the  campaign  conducted  in 
his  city,  expressed  it:  "I  did  what  I  could  in  this 
noble  work  and  I  shall  count  myself  undesei'ving 
of  the  respect  of  my  fellow  Americans  if  I  ever 
thought  of  allowing  race,  creed  or  color  to  stand 
between  me  and  the  duties  of  a  real  man  when  con- 
fronted anywhere  in  the  world  by  starvation  and 
distress."  North  and  South,  on  the  Atlantic  sea- 
board, in  the  middle-West  and  on  the  Pacific,  men 
and  women  who  were  faithful  to  the  humane 
American  tradition,  or  who  had  not  forgotten  their 
Bible,  or  who  had  had  dealings  with  Jews  in  their 
own  villages,  came  forward  enthusiastically  to  do 
their  part  in  every  campaign,  egged  on  by  a  sense 
tliat  a  people,  which  in  spite  of  twenty  centuries  of 


124  THE    JEW    PAYS 

persecution  could  still  retain  enough  of  their  vigor 
to  be  continually  making  contributions  to  the 
world's  civilization  and  be  worthy  citizens  every- 
where, should  not  be  allowed  to  perish  in  the 
shambles  of  a  world  gone  mad. 

Judge  E.  B.  Muse  of  Dallas  has  expressed,  I 
venture  to  hope,  the  attitude  of  high-minded  non- 
Jews  in  this  matter  in  the  most  eloquent  words — 
words  which  coming  from  a  Jew  would  have  been 
ungracious,  but  are  all  the  nobler  for  their  source: 

"All  we  have  to  do  is  to  stop  and  think — think,  what 
the  Jew  has  done  for  the  world — think  what  a  debt  the 
world  owes  the  Jew,  to  make  honest,  conscientious  men 
step  forth  and  do  their  best  now  in  behalf  of  the  Jew. 
The  Jew  first  pointed  man  to  the  worship  of  the  only 
true  and  living  God,  a  personal  God,  a  God  of  love, 
law,  justice  and  mercy. 

"The  Bible,  the  Ten  Commandments,  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount — the  foundation  of  all  law  in  all  civilized 
lands  comes  to  us  from  the  Jew. 

"We  proudly  appropriate  it  all  as  our  very  own, 
then  proceed  promptly  to  deprecate  and  depreciate  the 
source  from  whence  it  came. 

"Christ  was  a  Jew;  we  worship,  praise  and  prate  about 
the  lowly  Nazarene — We  revere  the  spot  and  venerate 
the  land  in  which  He  was  born,  and  then  straightway 
turn  and  revile  the  race  that  gave  Him  birth. 

Oh  generous,  consistent  Gentile!  We  take  the  gift  and 
welcome  it  to  our  bosom,  then  turn  our  backs  and  shut 
the  door  in  the  face  of  the  giver.  Whoever  saw  a  Jew 
beggar — whoever  saw  a  Jew  begging  for  bread  in  this 


SHARE    OF    OTHERS      125 

country  of  ours?  Point  the  time  and  place.  They  are 
a  proud,  sensitive  people.  They  are  a  frugal,  econom- 
ical, thrifty  and  progressive  people — all  they  ask  is  a 
chance  and  opportunity  to  live  and  be  happy. 

They  have  contributed  of  their  blood  and  treasure  un- 
stintedly to  every  good  cause  for  freedom  and  humanity's 
sake — from  Bunker  Hill  to  Yorktown  and  from  York- 
town  all  the  way  to  this  good  hour. 

No  purer  patriots  ever  lived,  no  more  loyal  friends 
had  any  man  or  country  than  the  Jews,  who  for  country 
and  friendship  sake  financed  Washington  in  the  dark 
days  of  the  American  Revolution. 

The  history  of  the  world  tells  the  story  of  their  un- 
dimmed  devotion  and  undying  love  for  freedom. 

It  appears  to  me  to  be  not  only  a  duty,  but  it  seems 
as  well  it  should  be  the  pleasure  of  every  thinking,  lib- 
erty-loving Gentile  in  America,  to  arise  and  say — Yes — 
yes,  this  is  the  first  time  I  have  ever  been  called  upon 
to  help  the  Jew — God  help  me,  I  will  do  my  best,  it  may 
not  be  much,  but  much  or  little,  I  will  do  my  best." 

Writing  to  the  press  of  his  State  anent  the  com- 
bined campaign  for  one  hundred  thousand  dollars 
for  the  Jewish  War  Sufferers  and  the  Jewish  Wel- 
fare Board,  Judge  W.  R.  Allen  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  North  Carolina  stated  the  case  for  Ameri- 
cans' cooperation  with  Jews  in  their  supreme  need 
in  these  emphatic  terms : 

"The  Jews  have  been  foremost  in  giving  of  their  time 
and  money  for  the  upbuilding  and  improvement  of  our 
city  and  country. 


126  THE    JEW    PAYS 

They  gave  more  than  a  third  of  the  cost  of  our  public 
hospital,  have  bought  liberally  of  Liberty  bonds,  War 
Saving  stamps,  and  have  been  generous  contributors  to 
the  Red  Cross  and  the  Y.M.C.A. 

Shall  we  be  less  generous  and  liberal  than  they? 

Our  President  has  said  'Give  until  it  hurts.'  I  am  not 
sure  but  that  Nathan  Straus  has  expressed  the  duty  bet- 
ter when  he  says  'Give  until  it  feels  good.' 

Jeanie  Deans  in  her  plea  before  the  Queen  for  the 
life  of  her  sister,  regarded  as  one  of  the  most  eloquent 
passages  in  all  literature,  said  truly,  'When  the  hour  of 
death  comes  it  isn't  what  we  have  done  for  ourselves, 
but  what  we  have  done  for  others  that  we  think  of  most 
pleasantly.' 

I  regard  this  as  an  exceptional  opportunity  to  express 
our  appreciation  to  the  Jews  for  what  they  have  done. 
If  I  had  it  in  my  power  as  Chairman  of  the  Goldsboro 
Jewish  Relief  Committee,  /  should  prevent  the  acceptance 
of  any  contribution  from  the  Jewish  citizens  of  this  com- 
munity, so  that  we,  the  non-Jews,  might  have  the  pleasure 
of  raising  the  entire  quota  ourselves" 

I  have,  myself,  seen  scores  of  busy  merchants, 
and  still  busier  mothers,  forgetting  their  normal 
duties  for  weeks  at  a  time  to  devote  themselves  day 
and  night  without  stint  and  without  thought  of 
themselves,  to  this  work.  Some  drove  motor  cars 
over  unknown  and  impassable  roads  to  solicit  in 
remote  hamlets  sums  which  in  the  aggregate  barely 
equaled  the  value  of  their  time.  Others  pounded 
typewriters  or  filed  cards  or  talked  from  soap-boxes 


SHARE    OF    OTHERS     127 

or  performed  any  one  of  a  dozen  clerical  tasks  on 
behalf  of  people  whom  tliey  had  never  seen,  in- 
habitants of  countries  whose  names  they  could 
barely  pronounce.  I  recall  a  banker  in  New  Or- 
leans who  shunned  his  office  and  his  desk  for  an  en- 
tire month,  and  that,  before  he  had  had  time  to  re- 
cover from  the  effects  of  a  major  operation;  while 
his  wife  turned  over  the  care  of  her  child  in  the 
midst  of  the  influenza  epidemic,  to  a  paid  nurse,  so 
that  she  might,  herself,  head  a  woman's  team  of 
solicitors. 

And  this  splendid  spirit,  as  it  transcended  the 
lines  of  race  and  creed,  passed  also  beyond  the 
boundaries  of  occupation  and  class.  The  wealthy 
and  the  influential  did  no  more  in  proportion  than 
the  poor  and  the  humble.  Down  in  a  town  in 
Georgia  a  little  group  of  young  women  proved 
once  more  that  the  love  of  mankind  is  no  private 
privilege  of  the  fortunate.  They  had  been  asked 
by  the  local  committee  to  work  for  a  little  while 
after  office  hours  in  order  to  help  wind  up  the 
campaign.  The  little  while  lengthened  out  until 
two  in  the  morning.  They  stuck  to  their  type- 
writers without  complaint  until  the  last  letter  had 
been  written  and  the  last  card  filed.  Then  the 
chairman  off'ered  them  five  dollars  apiece  for 
their  services.  With  one  accord  they  declined  the 
off"er  and  begged  that  their  labor  be  accepted  as 


128  THEJEWPAYS 

their  contribution  to  the  town's  quota.  These  girls 
were  not  Jewesses.  Some  of  them  would  have  been 
hard  put  to  it  to  tell  what  a  Jewess  was.  They  were 
mere  American  girls.  From  a  village  in  North 
Carolina  there  comes  the  report  of  an  elderly 
spinster  whose  only  source  of  income  was  a  meager 
property  inheritance  amounting  to  no  more  than 
two  hundred  dollars  a  year.  She  was  among  the 
first  to  respond  to  an  advertisement  inserted  by  a 
Christian  church  in  the  local  newspaper — the 
church  not  being  of  her  own  denomination — with 
a  contribution  of  twenty-five  dollars. 

Both  for  genuineness  of  sentiment  and  simplicity 
of  language,  I  have  no  hesitancy  in  reproducing 
the  letter  which  follows,  as  one  of  tlie  purest  docu- 
ments in  the  annals  of  man's  love  for  his  kind : 

J.  S.  MURROW 

MISSIONARY   AMONG   INDIANS  60   YEARS — 82   YEARS   OLD 

Under  God's  Direction  Founder  of 

MURROW  INDIAN   ORPHANS'    HOME 

Bacone,   Oklahoma 

Atoka,   Oklahoma  April   20th 

Mr.  Herbert  H.  Lehman 

Treasurer  &c. 
Dear  Sir 

I  am  not  a  Jew. — I  am  an  old — worn  out  Christian — 
Indian  Missionary — a  Baptist. — 

Your  God  is  my  God.  Your  Father — my  Father.  Your 
people  are  my  Master's  people.     Your  brethren  are  my 


SHARE    OF    OTHERS      129 

brethren.  My  means  are  small — but  my  heart  greatly  re- 
joices because  of  this  privilege  of  sending  the  enclosed 
one  hundred  dollars  for  the  relief  of  the  suffering  and 
starving  Jews  in  Europe. 

Sincerely, 

J.  S.  MURROW, — 
Atoka— Okla. 

More  impressive,  perhaps,  but  in  no  way  differ- 
ing in  spirit,  was  the  conduct  of  a  prominent  citizen 
of  Wilmington,  Delaware,  at  the  end  of  a  stirring 
address.  The  speaker,  who  had  been  warned  that — 
by  a  promise  made  to  the  community  beforehand — 
no  collections  would  be  permitted  at  the  meeting, 
was  compelled  before  he  had  ended,  by  the  clamor 
of  a  largely  non-Jewish  audience,  not  only  to  ac- 
cept pledges  amounting  to  more  than  three-quarters 
of  the  quota  assigned  to  the  city  for  the  entire 
campaign,  but  to  accept  the  promise  of  this  promi- 
nent citizen,  that  the  quota  would  be  either  over- 
subscribed by  the  community  or  that  he  personally 
would  make  up  the  deficit. 

There  is  no  parallel  on  record  to  this  downright 
scramble  on  the  part  of  men  and  women  of  other 
faiths  to  render  service  to  a  Jewish  cause.  One  has 
but  to  read  the  hundreds  of  full-page  advertise- 
ments in  the  press  of  our  country  to  be  struck  with 
the  depth  and  genuineness  of  this  eagerness  to  help. 
The  names  of  the  individuals  and  firms  and  insti- 
tutions signed  to  these  exhortations  are  a  revelation. 


130  THE    JEW    PAYS 

and  constitute  in  themselves  an  amazing  chapter  in 
the  history  of  human  relations.  Newspaper  owners 
raced  with  bankers  and  business  men;  Protestant 
churches  competed  with  Catholic  bodies  in  their 
efforts  to  surpass  one  another's  contributions.  The 
newspapers  gave  of  their  space  freely  in  news,  edi- 
torials and  in  cartoons.  And  the  churches,  in  ad- 
dition to  lending  their  buildings  and  even  tlie  serv- 
ices of  their  clergy,  vied  with  one  another  in  pub- 
lishing, entirely  without  solicitation,  full-page 
newspaper  advertisements  in  which  the  plea  of 
humanity  and  a  fundamental  Christianity  was  con- 
veyed more  effectively  than  in  any  appeals  made 
by  Jews  themselves.  As  an  illustration,  I  repro- 
duce the  facsimile  of  such  an  advertisement  from  a 
Louisiana  newspaper  on  the  opposite  page. 

In  towns  and  villages  without  number,  where 
Jews  were  either  non-existent  or  inert,  the  non- 
Jews  took  the  initiative  altogether.  The  people 
would  read  their  governor's  proclamation,  or  the 
mayor's  of  the  near-by  city,  and  resolve  to  do  their 
share.  They  would  call  a  meeting  of  the  most 
influential  citizens  or  the  most  generous  or  the  most 
capable,  and  falling  back  on  their  experiences  in 
Red  Cross,  Liberty  Loan  and  United  War  Work 
drives,  proceeded  to  initiate  a  campaign  and  do 
what  was  expected  of  them.  A  member  of  the 
North  Dakota  Committee  relates  this  incident:     He 


Because  Christ  Commands  It 

"WE  URGE  EVERYONE  TO  HELP 
THE  JEWISH  SUFFERERS 

BECAUSE  THEY  NEED  IT.  BECAUSE  WE-  BELIEVE  IN  PAYING  OUR  DEBTS. 

Humanity  Owes  Much  to  The  Jews 

Moses  gave  us  the  Moral  Law;  David  voiced  every  cry  of  joy  or  sorrow  of  the  human  heart  to  God; 
Christ,  after  the  flesh,  born  a  Jew,  taught  in  the  Good  Samaritan  story— 

THAT  WHO  NEEDS  MY  HELP 
IS  MY  NEIGHBOR 

So;  for  Christ's  sweet  sake;  HELP  THE  JEWISH  SUFFERERS  OVERSEAS  with  an  open  hand. 
In  the  U.  W.  W.  campaign  the  jews,  knowing  they  wouk!  only  get  three  million  dollars  out  of  tlie 
contributions;  gave  about  twenty  million  dollars,  and  the  Y.  M.  C.  A;  and  the  Red  Cross  were  the 
beneficjaries  of  their  liberality  to  about  seventeen  million  dollars. 

It  not  for  sweet  charity's  sake,  at  least  not  to  be  |)ut  to  shame!  let  us  help  those  who;  while  giving 
to  ours,  never  before  have  asked  us  to  give  to  theirs. 

We  Urge  All  Methodists  to  Give  in  the  Name  of  Christ 
Born  of  the  House  of  David 

—First  Methodist  Churdu 
A   BIT  OF  PRACTICAL   CHRISTIANITY 


SHARE    OF    OTHERS     131 

had  traveled  many  weary  miles  to  one  of  the  out- 
lying counties  in  his  State  in  order  to  confer  with 
certain  leading  men  on  methods  of  extending  the 
State  campaign  into  that  region.  He  arrived  at  the 
little  town  which  was  the  county  seat,  late  in  the 
evening.  Happening  to  be  acquainted  with  the 
local  Supreme  Court  Judge,  he  drove  up  to  his 
house.  His  honor,  he  learned,  was  not  at  home; 
he  was  attending  a  meeting  at  the  Court  House;  so 
to  the  Court  House  our  committee  man  went  to 
find  around  a  great  table  all  the  wealth  and  promi- 
nence of  the  district.  He  was  about  to  withdraw 
in  embarrassment  at  the  intrusion,  when  the  presi- 
dent of  the  local  bank  boisterously  invited  him  to 
enter.  "You  are  just  in  time,"  he  said.  "You 
might  be  able  to  help  us.  We  were  just  organizing 
a  campaign  for  Jewish  relief."     "Gentlemen,"  he 

turned  to  the  others,  "this  is  Mr. ,  Mr.  

this  is  our  Jewish  campaign  committee." 

Not  only  in  spirit,  but  in  actual  substance  has 
the  share  of  the  Gentile  in  the  cause  of  war-stricken 
Jewry  been  mounting  higher  and  higher,  until  there 
is  an  inkling  in  the  minds  of  many  of  the  workers 
that  it  has  become  quite  disproportionate.  I  have, 
myself,  a  suspicion  that,  incredible  as  it  may  seem, 
certain  Jews,  seeing  the  growing  willingness  of  their 
non- Jewish  neighbors  to  bear  a  part  of  tlie  burden, 
are  disposed  to  delegate  it  to  them  in  its  entirety. 


132  THE    JEW   PAYS 

It  would  therefore  not  be  amiss  at  this  time  if  some 
enterprising  statistician  were  to  determine  just  what 
portion  of  the  funds  that  are  now  being  collected 
are  derived  from  Jewish  and  non-Jewish  pockets 
respectively.  Comparisons  are  odious,  as  Mrs. 
Malaprop  held,  but  if  they  prove  in  this  instance 
what  I  fear  they  might,  the  Jewish  slacker  will 
deserve  all  the  odium  that  they  may  cast  upon  him. 
There  are  constant  complaints,  I  am  told  authorita- 
tively, from  committees  in  scattered  parts  of  the 
country  headed  by  non-Jews,  that  their  Jewish  fel- 
low-townsmen are  remiss  in  doing  their  part. 
Chairmen  write  in  from  time  to  time  to  the  directing 
heads  of  the  committees  asking  for  suggestions  as 
to  how  such  people  might  be  brought  to  book. 
The  answer,  I  would  venture  to  suggest,  in  all  cases, 
is  the  public  exhibition  of  the  names  of  backsliders 
wherever  they  may  be  found  and  in  such  a  way 
that  they  will  do  the  most  good  to  the  cause,  and 
the  most  harm  to  Mr.  Scrooge, 


CHAPTER   XIV 

PROBLEMS  OF  DISTRIBUTION 

IN  the  collection  of  moneys  it  had  proven  im- 
practicable, even  though  desirable,  to  effect  a 
fusion  of  the  several  committees  and  the  constitu- 
encies which  they  represented.  On  the  part  of  the 
immediate  members  of  the  committees  there  was 
and  remains,  to  begin  with,  a  pride  of  organization 
which  constitutes  a  persistent  and  very  real  obstacle 
to  amalgamation.  In  addition,  the  two  minor 
bodies  claim  with  an  appreciable  show  of  reason 
that,  in  spite  of  the  inherent  community  of  interest 
between  all  groups  in  Jewry  and  in  spite  of  their 
common  purpose  in  relation  to  the  European  situa- 
tion, there  remains  nevertheless  a  very  real  residue 
of  difference  which  is  bound  to  express  itself  in 
separate  alignments.  Admittedly,  the  People's 
Relief  Committee  is  doing  a  share  of  the  fund- 
raising  which  neither  of  its  fellow-committees  could 
do  for  it  and  which  it  would  be  wasteful  to  neglect. 
On  the  other  hand,  within  the  precincts  of  the  Cen- 
tral Committee  officials  are  prone  to  confess  that 
while  a  large  portion  of  its  resources  could  undoubt- 
edly  be   increased   if   they   were   tapped   by   the 

133 


134  THE   JEW    PAYS 

mechanisms  of  the  American  Committee,  neverthe- 
less, the  aggregate  of  contributions  coming  from 
this  element  of  Jewry  would  not  in  all  probability 
be  any  greater  and,  not  impossibly,  even  smaller. 
At  any  rate,  and  regardless  of  the  logic  of  the  situa- 
tion, it  remains  a  fact  that  all  efforts  in  the  past 
four  years  to  convert  the  triple  body  into  a  single 
unified  and  powerful  organization  have  gone  for 
naught. 

When,  however,  the  question  arose  as  to  the  best 
manner  in  which  to  dispose  of  the  collected  funds, 
the  long-drawn-out  discussion  of  the  advantages 
and  disadvantages  of  concentrated  action  was 
abruptly  brought  to  a  close  with  almost  no  argu- 
ment at  all.  In  respect  to  distribution  the  minor 
committees  readily  perceived  the  undesirability  of 
duplication  and  the  virtual  impossibility  of  their 
own  direct  administration  of  their  respective  trusts. 
Had  their  tasks  been  of  an  ordinary  peace-time 
character  their  passionate  sense  of  identity  might 
even  here  have  held  them  apart.  But  it  was  clearly 
out  of  the  question  for  groups  composed  of  such 
material  as  went  into  the  making  of  the  two  immi- 
grant committees  to  engage  in  diplomatic  negotia- 
tions, foreign  exchange,  and  the  complexities  and 
perplexities  of  freight  transportation  across  the 
Atlantic  and  the  continent  of  Europe  in  time  of  war. 
Whether  or  not  the  rank  and  file  of  their  member- 


DISTRIBUTION  135 

ship  would  prove  more  responsive  to  appeals  made 
to  them  by  their  own  leadership,  no  one  could  ex- 
pect trade  union  officials,  rabbis,  and  small  business 
men  to  conduct  an  undertaking  which,  whether  you 
like  it  or  not,  is  in  the  province  of  international 
bankers  and  large  entrepreneurs. 

In  its  earliest  days,  to  be  sure,  the  Central  Com- 
mittee had  made  an  attempt  to  do  its  own  dis- 
bursing. It  had  transported  as  early  as  October, 
1914,  considerable  funds  to  Palestine  and  to 
Austria,  but  this  was  at  the  time  when  the  war  had 
scarcely  begun  and  the  avenues  of  European  in- 
tercourse had  not  yet  become  as  effectually  closed 
as  they  were  soon  to  be.  Neither  Italy  and 
Rumania  on  the  one  hand  nor  Turkey  and  Bulgaria 
on  the  other  had  as  yet  joined  in  the  war.  The 
Allied  blockade  of  the  continent  had  hardly  as  yet 
been  thought  of;  and  yet  even  under  these  compara- 
tively favorable  circumstances  tlie  transaction  had 
been  fraught  with  no  end  of  difficulties  and  expense. 
And  it  became  obvious  by  this  very  experience  itself 
that,  as  a  measure  both  of  dispatch  and  economy,  a 
distributive  union  between  the  committees  was  in- 
evitable. In  consequence  we  find  on  the  27\h.  of 
November — precisely  one  week  after  the  sums 
above  referred  to  had  been  transmitted  to  the  Old 
World  by  the  Central  Committee,  a  successful  at- 
tempt being  initiated  on  the  part  of  the  Executive 


136  THE    JEW    PAYS 

Committees  of  both  organizations  to  effect  a  per- 
manent disbursement  agency.  On  that  date  a 
meeting  was  called  at  the  building  of  the  United 
Hebrew  Charities  which  culminated  in  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  Joint  Distribution  Committee.  It 
was  easily  agreed  that  the  membership  of  this  new 
body  should  consist  of  the  Executive  Committees 
of  its  constituent  members.  The  very  name  of  the 
new  organization  was  a  concession  to  the  lively 
sense  of  identity  of  the  separate  collecting  agencies. 
And  its  officers  were  drawn  with  an  eye  to  the  sen- 
sibilities of  all  elements.  Mr.  Felix  M.  War- 
burg, recently  elected  Treasurer  of  the  American 
Committee,  was  made  the  Chairman  of  the  new 
organization,  while  the  active  directorship  was 
turned  over  to  a  prominent  member  of  the  Central 
Relief  Committee.  The  People's  Relief  Commit- 
tee, having  as  yet  not  been  formed,  its  constituency 
took  no  share  in  the  proceedings. 

It  took  but  one  afternoon  for  the  delegations  of 
the  two  organizations  to  arrive  at  an  agreement. 
The  fundamental  need  for  a  common  instrumen- 
tality was  too  patent  to  need  discussion,  and  there 
prevailed  at  the  conference  such  a  liberal  spirit  of 
mutual  trust  and  friendly  cooperation  tliat  the  cus- 
tomary bickerings  regarding  representation  and 
leadership  were  automatically  precluded.  By  the 
sheer  accident  of  its  constituency  the  American 


DISTRIBUTION  137 

Committee  was  freely  recognized  as  possessing  the 
preponderant  qualifications  for  taking  the  initiative 
in  the  counsels  of  the  new  organization.  Its  mem- 
bership (apart  from  their  extensive  commercial 
affiliations  in  Europe)  had  had  longer  experience  in 
extending  relief  abroad  and  therefore  was  in  touch 
with  a  variety  of  groups  and  persons  overseas  who 
could  at  this  time  render  valuable  assistance. 
None  the  less  the  older  Central  Committee,  both 
by  virtue  of  its  precedence  in  the  field  and  because 
of  its  representative  character,  as  well  as  in  conse- 
quence of  its  profounder  understanding  of  the 
problems  of  Jewry  in  Eastern  Europe,  was  ac- 
corded an  equal  position  with  its  younger  and  more 
influential  partner. 

The  earliest  operations  of  the  Joint  Distribution 
Committee  extended  chiefly  to  Palestine.  It  was 
from  the  Holy  Land  that  the  first  direct  cry  for 
assistance  had  reached  America.  For  half  a  cen- 
tury the  Jewish  immigrants  of  that  country  had  been 
receiving  regular  support  from  their  co-religionists 
in  Germany  and  France  and  even  in  Russia  and 
Rumania.  And  the  declaration  of  the  state  of 
war,  accompanied  as  it  inevitably  was  by  a  dis- 
location of  international  relations,  brought  the 
severest  consequences  of  misery  upon  these  already 
pauperized  colonies  before  it  touched  even  the 
ghettoes.     Theirs,  above  all  others',  was  the  most 


138  THE    JEW    PAYS 

urgeni  case  and,  in  a  sense,  the  immediate  occasion 
for  creating  the  disbursing  agency. 

Ere  long,  however,  the  Joint  Distribution  Com- 
mittee addressed  itself  to  the  more  comprehensive 
task.  Utilizing  the  relationships  which  American 
Jewry  had  established  with  Russia  in  tlie  days  of 
the  Kishinefif  pogroms,  the  directorate  quickly 
initiated  correspondence  with  the  leaders  of  Jewry 
in  that  empire.  Baron  Guinzburg,  M.  Schlossberg, 
and  their  many  associates  who  had  proved  them- 
selves such  able  and  devofeed  workers  in  past  emer- 
gencieffe,  were  again  set  to  work  and  given  plenary 
powers  as  the  agents  in  their  country  of  the  joint 
American  organization.  In  Austria  the  Allianz 
had  had  broad  experience  in  administering  aid  to 
the  Jews  of  Galicia.  It  was  reorganized  and  ren- 
dered more  representative  by  expanding  its  coun- 
cils to  include  the  orthodox  and  labor  elements. 
During  and  after  the  German  invasion  of  the  Pale 
it  was  necessary  for  the  Committee  to  conduct  its 
affairs  through  the  medium  of  the  German  forces 
of  occupation,  and  by  all  reports  these  relations 
were  throughout  in  the  highest  degree  satisfactory. 
The  American  State  Department  was  from  the  first 
day  to  this,  at  once  the  closest  and  the  most  helpful 
of  the  committee's  allies.  Even  before  the  entry 
of  the  United  States  into  the  war  it  was  virtually 
impossible  for  private  citizens,  however  influential, 


DISTRIBUTION  139 

to  conduct  a  traffic  of  such  immense  proportions 
without  proceeding  through  diplomatic  and  con- 
sular channels.  After  vve  ourselves  became  a 
belligerent  the  difficulties  of  transportation  and  ex- 
change became  more  complex  than  ever.  The  re- 
lations of  the  committee  with  the  German  and 
Austrian  authorities  as  well  as  with  private  agencies 
within  those  countries,  had  as  a  matter  of  course 
to  cease.  Shipping  facilities  diminished  con- 
tinuously until  they  reached  almost  the  vanishing 
point.  Communication  with  the  Eastern  half  of  the 
European  continent  was  almost  completely  cut  off. 
The  energies  of  the  American  Government  and  of 
the  American  people  were,  as  was  to  be  expected, 
deflected  into  military  channels.  And  as  if  to  com- 
plete the  cycle  of  obstacles  the  formerly  disguised 
chaos  of  the  Czar's  regime  succumbed  to  open  dis- 
integration and  revolution. 

At  this  juncture  the  Committee  found  it  expedient 
to  shift  its  channels  of  action  from  the  Central 
Powers  to  The  Netherlands.  The  practical  prob- 
lems and  difficulties  in  carrying  out  this  change 
were,  as  may  be  readily  imagined,  of  the  utmost 
complexity;  and  the  organization  resolved  to  send 
over  a  mission  headed  by  Dr.  Boris  Bogen  to  con- 
duct negotiations  with  the  governments  affected  as 
well  as  to  open  up  communications  through  the 
North  of  Europe.     In  a  very  brief  period  Dr.  Bogen 


140  THE    JEW    PAYS 

succeeded  in  establishing  at  The  Hague  a  per- 
manent committee  of  leading  Dutch  Jews  who  have 
ever  since  very  ably  carried  on  an  important  phase 
of  the  overseas  affairs  of  the  Joint  Distribution 
Committee.  Their  activities  have  come  to  be  re- 
garded as  an  integral  part  of  the  New  York  body. 

But  the  progressive  distintegration  of  the  erst- 
while Russian  Empire  became  an  unending  source 
of  hindrance  and  obstacle  to  the  distribu»tion  of  re- 
lief. Continuous  warfare,  the  rise  and  fall  of 
mushroom  governments,  the  uncertainty  of  life  and 
the  insecurity  of  property,  the  breakdown  of  rail- 
way communication  and  of  the  entire  economic 
process  of  the  immense  country,  the  erection  of 
ever-new  "national"  boundaries,  could  not  but  in- 
terfere severely  with  the  movements  of  relief  funds 
and  materials.  It,  in  effect,  put  a  virtual  stop  to 
all  operations.  The  American  and  the  Allied  gov- 
ernments, which  continued  to  exhibit  the  utmost 
goodwill,  were  to  all  practical  purposes  powerless 
to  assist.  Since  the  fall  of  the  ancient  regime  no 
government  had  been  recognized  anywhere  in 
Russia,  and  consequently  no  channels  existed 
through  which  the  influence  of  the  Allied  and  asso- 
ciated governments  could  express  itself.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  cessation  of  active  fighting  between 
the  major  countries  had  resulted  to  a  considerable 
extent  in  reestablishing  a  measure  of  communica- 


DISTRIBUTION  141 

tion  between  Western  and  Eastern  Europe.  De- 
spite the  collapse  of  the  Central  Empires,  the  ending 
of  the  war  was  a  forerunner  of  something  like 
normal  relations  in  the  heart  of  Europe.  In  Ger- 
many and  in  most  of  the  new  states  created  out  of 
the  wreck  of  Austria,  Allied  influence  was  para- 
mount; so  that  it  was  at  least  possible  to  approach 
the  outer  walls  of  the  Pale. 

Moreover,  and  as  will  be  seen  more  explicitly 
later,  the  condition  of  the  helpless  Jewish  people 
became  both  clearer  and  distinctly  more  aggravated. 
As  long  as  the  fighting  continued,  the  American 
rescue  agencies  labored  in  the  dark.  One  got 
occasional  glimpses,  to  be  sure,  of  the  state  of 
aff^airs  over  there  from  travelers,  correspondents, 
and  now  and  then  from  a  sporadic  report  issuing 
directly  from  the  Committee's  own  beneficiaries  and 
representatives.  It  is  common  knowledge,  how- 
ever, that  reports  from  Russian  Jewish  sources 
were  of  the  meagerest  and  the  very  worst  that  the 
New  York  offices  received  from  anywhere.  Now, 
with  the  opening  up  of  the  Continent,  there  came  a 
sudden  and  most  pungent  revelation  of  the  totally 
unimagined  misery  and  decay  that  four  and  a  half 
years  of  war  had  brought  to  the  Jewries  of  old 
Russia;  and  the  Jews  of  America  stood  appalled  at 
the  exhibition.  Meantime,  the  horror,  far  from 
being  an  accumulation  merely  of  the  recent  past. 


142  THE    JEW    PAYS 

was  galloping  on  and  growing  continually  worse 
and  increasingly  less  controllable.  It  looked  in- 
deed as  if  the  sheer  physical  and  nervous  state  of 
six  millions  of  people  had  reached  a  stage  beyond 
the  ministrations  of  relief.  What  these  people 
were  obviously  suffering  from  was  now  not  merely 
the  absence  of  ordinary  physical  human  necessities. 
That  might  have  been  their  case  three  years  before, 
or  even  one  year  ago.  At  the  moment,  the  Ameri- 
can agencies  found  themselves  confronted  with  a 
population  which  had  become,  as  a  consequence  of 
nearly  five  years  of  intense  privation  and  suffering, 
utterly  degraded.  It  was  the  backbone  of  East 
European  Jewry  that  had  been  crushed.  Pauperi- 
zation was  the  least  of  the  terrible  effects  of  a  pro- 
longed siege.  One  was  face  to  face  with  a  great 
mass  of  humanity  which  had  become  devoid  of 
nervous  force,  of  the  power  to  resist — almost  of 
recognizable  human  form.  Its  vitality,  its  grip, 
its  common  human  pride,  almost  its  very  will  to 
life,  had  been  destroyed. 

And  yet,  desperate  apparently  as  the  problem 
was,  there  was  but  one  thing  for  organized  Ameri- 
can Jewry  to  do.  It  was  to  plunge  in  with  the 
utmost  energy  and  to  make  an  attempt  at  saving 
what  remained.  Dr.  Boris  Bogen,  who  had  pre- 
viously distinguished  himself  by  his  success  in  The 
Netherlands,  was  once  more  dispatched  abroad. 


DISTRIBUTION  143 

this  time  to  Poland,  to  survey  the  field  and  to  render 
such  aid  as  the  immediate  emergency  demanded. 
He  remains  there  to  this  day — a  plenipotentiary  of 
the  Joint  Distribution  Committee,  a  diplomatic 
official,  a  correspondent,  a  social  expert,  a  modera- 
tor between  hostile  races,  a  purchasing  agent,  a  food 
dispenser,  a  nurse  and  a  comforter,  all  in  one.  He 
was  lately  supplemented  by  a  comprehensive  dele- 
gation, representative  of  all  committees  in  America. 
He  is  constantly  collaborating  with  scores  of  local 
agencies  in  Poland,  in  Galicia  and  Russia,  most  of 
whom  he  has  himself  set  up.  He  and  the  merciful 
organizations  whom  he  represents  are  doing  all  that 
human  effort  and  sympathy  can  do.  It  is  not  a 
great  deal,  in  the  circumstances.  He  is  spending 
millions  of  money  and  rescuing  whole  communities 
of  children  and  women  and  men  from  death  by  star- 
vation and  from  a  life  which  is  worse  than  death. 
But  no  one  is  more  keenly  aware  than  they  how  far 
from  the  ends  they  have  set  for  themselves  are  these 
painfully  inadequate  palliative  efforts.  The  need 
of  the  moment  is  not  merely  greater  financial  re- 
sources— though  that  is  the  primary  need — but  a 
reconstructed  medium  to  move  in.  And  that  is,  of 
course,  in  a  phrase,  the  problem  that  the  period  of 
war  hands  on  to  our  era  of  peace. 


CHAPTER   XV 

PROBLEMS  FOR  TO-DAY  AND  TO-MORROW 

AND  now  at  last  the  war  is  over.  At  least  it  is 
officially  and  technically  over  west  of  the 
Rhine.  Hostilities  are  at  an  end.  Armistices  and 
peace  treaties  of  a  sort  have  been  signed.  The 
American  people  have  done  their  celebrating,  they 
have  paraded  and  cheered,  they  have  put  over  the 
last  public  loan,  and  are  now  ready  to  return  to 
business  and  the  normal  conduct  of  life.  For  what 
is  transpiring  in  Central  and  Eastern  Europe,  and 
in  a  goodly  share  of  the  continent  of  Asia,  they  have 
neither  understanding  nor  concern.  How  should 
they?  They  undertook  to  participate  in  a  war 
against  a  single  power,  and  that  power  has  gone 
down  to  a  ruin  complete  beyond  the  dream  of 
patriotism.  The  German  war  is  over;  and  with 
that  happy  consummation,  the  share  of  Americans 
in  the  business  is  at  an  end.  After  all  is  said 
and  done,  they  belong  in  a  world  of  their  own. 
They  have  never  had,  and  they  cannot  have  now, 
any  abiding  interest  in  the  rows  and  petty  rivalries 
of  a  strange  and  distant  climate.  The  conflict  with 
Germany  had,  by  an  elaborate  and  well-sustained 

144 


PROBLEMS  145 

propaganda,  come  to  have  an  intimate  meaning  for 
them.  It  had  been  idealized  and  dramatized.  But 
the  sequel  is  another  affair.  It  is  sordid  and  con- 
fused to  the  point  of  dullness.  Leagues  of  nations 
and  alliances,  open  diplomacy  and  secret  covenants, 
the  new  international  order,  territorial  claims  and 
counter-claims,  plebiscites,  and  the  rights  of  racial 
minorities,  are  alien  phrases  to  them.  They  are 
part  of  the  jargon  of  European  politics.  And  con- 
trary to  the  expectations  of  the  sanguine,  the  politics 
of  the  Old  World  are  to  Americans  as  meaningless 
after  the  war  as  they  were  before.  The  New  World 
will  have  problems  and  difficulties  of  its  own  which 
will  be  somewhat  distinct  and  separate;  and  good 
Americans  are  naturally  eager  to  grapple  with 
them. 

Meantime,  Europe  is  bleeding  at  her  heart  and 
in  her  vitals;  the  armistice  was  unhappily  not  a 
signal  for  universal  disarmament  and  hand-shak- 
ing; it  was,  as  a  lone  realist  here  and  there  had 
warned  us  beforehand  that  it  would  be,  a  bugle  call 
proclaiming  that  Europe  was  at  last  and  in  earnest 
at  war.  Between  the  Rhine  and  the  Pacific,  the 
official  count  discovers  no  fewer  than  fifteen  in- 
dividual wars.  The  actual  number  is  doubtless 
much  greater.  There  are  class  wars,  and  slightly 
reduced  copies  of  the  war  for  democracy  and  ideals, 
and  just  plain  old-fashioned  national  wars.     Guer- 


146  THE    JEW    PAYS 

rillas,  pogroms,  and  civil  strife  of  the  most  colorful 
variety,  scar  the  continent  all  the  way  from  Munich 
to  Vladivostock.  The  carefully  drawn  line  between 
Entente  and  Quadruple  Alliance  has  been  utterly 
obliterated.  The  precious  small  nations  for  whose 
preservation  the  great  war  was  initiated  and  pro- 
longed, are  now  somewhat  unideally  conducting  a 
set  of  small  wars  for  each  other's  annihilation. 

It  was,  I  always  had  a  private  conviction,  a  very 
careless  thing  to  begin  the  long-awaited  European 
war;  but  it  was  the  sheerest  absent-mindedness  to 
encourage  a  revolution  in  Germany  and  the  disin- 
tegration of  Austria.  Popular  uprisings  and  the 
collapse  of  polyglot  empires  are  interesting 
pastimes  which  are  much  easier  to  start  than  to 
bring  to  a  convenient  and  satisfactory  finish.  It 
was  one  thing  to  defeat  Austria;  it  is  quite  another 
to  cure  the  madness  which  Austria  held  in  check. 
It  was  one  thing,  and  a  comparatively  simple  one, 
to  fight  a  wild  dog,  even  if  he  were  many-headed; 
it  is  quite  another  to  cope  with  an  entire  brood  of 
scurrying  pups,  savagely  snapping  at  you  in  an  ef- 
fort to  devour  one  another.  Wherefore  it  is  not 
surprising  that  healthy  Americans  are  disillusioned 
and  annoyed  and  eager  to  wash  their  hands  of  the 
whole  matter. 

In  the  very  center  of  this  beaa  spectacle — of  this 
much-heralded  new  world — six  millions  of  Jewish 


PROBLEMS  147 

babies  and  women  and  men  find  themselves  heirs 
to  an  estate  beside  which  even  the  chaos  of  the  great 
war  seems  in  retrospect  like  the  veriest  salvation. 
While  America  and  Western  Europe,  with  the  able 
assistance  of  Japan,  Porto  Rico,  and  Siam,  are  busy 
fashioning  a  New  World  under  the  tutelage  of  the 
League  of  Nations,  the  realists  of  Eastern  Europe, 
thoroughly  familiar  with  the  efficacy  of  scraps  of 
paper,  are  making  a  somewhat  undignified  scramble 
for  fails  accomplis.  The  game  of  grab  and  hold  is 
on  with  greater  zeal  than  ever.  The  little  statesmen 
of  the  Baltic  and  the  Balkans  have  a  firmer  grasp 
of  the  idealisms  and  the  aspirations  of  Europe  than 
even  Mr.  Woodrow  Wilson.  The  President  of  the 
United  States  may  rejoice  unhindered  over  the 
happy  dissolution  of  the  Central  Empires;  it  is  for 
none  but  the  eyes  of  the  President  of  Poland  and 
the  potentates  of  the  Danube  to  behold  the  collapse 
of  the  Entente  as  well.  Europe  is  in  flames  and 
wise  men  rush  into  the  burning  structure  and  save 
what  ihey  can.  Now  or  never  is  the  time  to  gratify 
old  cupidities,  to  avenge  past  wrongs,  to  settle  long- 
standing accounts,  and  to  get  even  with  ancient  foes. 
And  the  oldest  enemy  as  well  as  the  most  helpless  is, 
of  course,  the  Jew.  Japan,  with  all  her  reputation 
for  cunning  is  nowhere  in  it  beside  these  Realpoli- 
tiker.  The  most  that  she  could  devise  was  con- 
queror's terms  to  a  peaceful  ally  and  neighbor  at  a 


148  THE    JEW    PAYS 

moment  when  the  watchful  Great  Powers  were  not 
looking.  They  do  it  vastly  better  in  East  Europe. 
They  have  out-grown  the  child's  play  of  diplomatic 
clap-trap.  Conquered  people  may  revive.  The 
dead  alone  cease  to  trouble. 

East  European  Jewry  finds  itself  exactly  at  the 
same  point  in  the  highway  at  the  conclusion  of  the 
war  as  at  its  beginning.  Only  progress  has  become 
next  to  impossible.  It  is  no  longer  a  civilized  high- 
way, subject  to  the  laws  of  traffic.  It  has  become 
a  miserable  by-way  outside  of  the  pale  of  organized 
mankind;  its  sides  are  a  series  of  ambush,  the  nests 
of  brigands,  and  its  terminus  a  bag's  end.  The 
customary  sanity  and  good-will  of  peace  have 
brought  no  more  respite  to  these  people  than  had 
the  customary  solidarity  of  war.  The  ever-lasting 
threat  of  Allied  patriotism  to  make  the  Germans  an 
out-law  nation,  may  or  may  not  become  a  fact. 
Outlawry  is  the  unofficial,  but,  therefore,  the  more 
effective,  status  of  the  Jewish  people.  Jewry  has 
become  a  huge  prison  camp.  America  is  collecting 
ever  larger  sums  for  its  relief,  but  its  condition  is 
beyond  the  ministrations  of  a  mere  bodily  amelio- 
ration. 

The  commissions  recently  sent  over  there  by  the 
Joint  Distribution  Committee  have  returned  with  a 
message  of  despair.  Some  of  them  are,  to  be  sure, 
going  about  the  country  appealing  for  renewed  ef- 


PROBLEMS  149 

forts,  but  there  is  not  one  of  them  who  will  not 
confess  that  the  problem  of  the  East  European  Jew 
is  a  thing  incapable  of  solution  by  the  method  of 
direct  and  unaided  financial  assistance.  They 
started  abroad  with  a  conviction  that  the  cessation 
of  hostilities  would  begin  a  new  chapter  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  salvage  of  European  Jewry  by  American 
Jewry.  The  effort  at  mere  palliative  relief,  they 
thought,  would  come  to  an  end,  and  a  greater  and 
more  comprehensive  endeavor  would  be  initiated 
looking  toward  the  restoration  of  the  victimized 
millions  to  self-respect  ind  normal  lives.  That 
had  been  the  primary  object  of  the  expedition — to 
discover  ways  and  means  of  applying  American 
funds  to  the  permanent  rehabilitation  of  Russian 
and  Polish  and  Galician  Jewry.  The  commission 
has  come  back  in  a  skeptical  frame  of  mind.  Such 
members  of  it  as  I  have  spoken  to  invariably  shake 
their  heads  doubtfully  at  the  mere  mention  of  con- 
structive relief.  How,  they  ask,  can  one  be  think- 
ing of  reconstructing  a  community  whose  very  nerve 
and  bone  is  in  a  state  of  advanced  decomposition? 
A  "convict  population"  is  the  startling  phrase  which 
constantly  recurs  in  their  accounts  of  conditions 
over  there.  Even  emigration  is,  for  a  long  time  to 
come,  out  of  the  question.  The  war  has  made  a 
sick  people  of  the  Jews  of  Eastern  Europe,  just  as 
it  has,  I  presume,  made  invalids  of  a  great  many 


150  THE    JEW    PAYS 

others.  They  are  not  fit  to  travel;  they  have  de- 
veloped an  entire  catalog  of  novel  physical  and 
mental  ailments.  Their  children  are  under- 
nourished and  stunted;  their  women  are  sucked  dry 
of  vitality  and  retain  barely  enough  vigor  to  sustain 
themselves,  to  say  nothing  of  nursing  their  young; 
and  the  men  are  afflicted  with  shattered  nerves, 
which  render  them  timid  of  their  environment  and 
distrustful  of  the  future. 

And  so  this  little  volume  leaves  off  exactly  where 
it  began.  The  question  that  I  asked  in  the  earliest 
chapter  remains  unanswered,  and  becomes  more 
perplexing  the  longer  I  think  of  it.  Here  are  six 
millions  of  starving,  homeless,  utterly  broken  hu- 
man beings.  What  is  to  be  done  about  them? 
The  Jew  of  Eastern  Europe  is  paying  the  price  of 
"peace"  just  as  he  has  been  paying  the  price  of  a 
war  not  of  his  own  making.  Surely  the  simplest 
and  most  immediate  method  of  saving  him  from  ex- 
piring before  our  very  eyes  is  for  American  Jewry 
to  go  on  with  the  burdensome  work  they  have  been 
doing  for  the  past  five  years.  Whatever  other 
remedies  may  be  thought  of  and  applied,  the  first 
need  will  be  for  vaster  and  ever  vaster  sums. 
However  vividly  we  may  realize  the  inadequacy  of 
mere  physical  rel'ef,  it  is  the  one  form  of  heh)  that 
can  be  immediately  extended.  And  the  splendid 
record  of  American  Jewry,  since  the  beginning  of 


PROBLEMS  151 

the  war,  is  a  reassuring  guarantee  that  nothing  will 
be  left  undone  in  this  direction.  But,  clearly,  this 
heroic  effort  is  bounded  by  a  multitude  of  limita- 
tions. It  is  an  attempt  to  treat  the  patient  by  re- 
lieving symptoms  instead  of  by  making  a  direct 
attack  on  the  malady  itself.  The  present  status  of 
the  Jew  in  Eastern  Europe  is  not  a  product  of  the 
war,  nor  an  inheritance  of  the  day  before  yester- 
day. Neither  will  it  be  changed  with  the  ultimate, 
and  after  all  inevitable,  reign  of  peace  in  Europe. 
The  thing  has  been  with  us  altogether  too  long;  and 
unless  something  drastic  and  heroic  is  done,  we 
shall  never  see  the  end  of  it.  The  Eastern  Jew  is 
threatening  to  become  the  world's  public  charge, 
unless  the  organized  decent  opinion  of  the  world  de- 
termines once  for  all  to  get  at  the  causes  of  his  help- 
lessness and  to  remove  them.  There  is  here  a  duty 
and  an  opportunity  for  civilized  society  in  general 
and  for  America  in  particular  to  step  in  and  demand 
that  the  Jew  shall  everywhere  be  allowed  to  live  his 
life  in  freedom  and  usefulness.  America  can  with 
particular  grace  and  self-confidence  make  such  a 
demand  by  pointing  at  once  to  her  own  proud  record 
in  her  dealings  with  the  Jew  and  to  the  magnificent 
results  of  her  policy.  The  rebuilding  of  the  an- 
cient Jewish  homeland  may  perhaps  eventually 
solve  the  Jewish  question;  but  for  the  time  being 
the  life  of  an  entire  people  and  the  sheer  social 


152  THE    JEW    PAYS 

health  of  a  dozen  European  countries  hang  upon 
an  application  of  the  Golden  Rule  and  the  political 
experience  of  the  last  century  to  the  sorely  stricken 
Jews  of  the  Old  World. 


FINIS 


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